
EVANGELIST JOSEPH S. DEMPSTER. 



"Bread from Heaven 



» 



BY 



MV JO SE p H S.DEMPSTER 

m Rom an IS m to Pentecost." 



INTRODUCTION BY 

"J- E - '• D. PE PPER . D . D . 



PUBLISHED BY 

CHmSTMNST rDARDcojMpANy 

921 Arch St., ' 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



43315 -g iV '=,11 r l 



SEP 5 1900 

Cop yrif ht tntry 

l..<34.JM.?z:... 

SECOND COPY. 

Oflivernd t© 

OftDER DIVISION, 
SEP 7 1900 



WJpyn 



Copyrighted 

By the Christian Standard Company, Limited. 

1899. 








CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER. 
I. 


The Knowledge of God, 13 


II. 
III. 


Poverty the Foundation of Spiritual Wealth, 27 
A Life of Perfect Submission, .... 43 


IY. 
V. 


A Life of Perfect Submission. (Continued), 55 
The Secret of His Presence, 65 



VI. Holy Quietness, 83 

VII. A Life of Prayer, 99 

VIII. Temptations, Trials and Tests, .... 115 

IX. Joy and Sadness, 135 

X. Christ-Like Love and Unity, 149 

XI. Christ-Like Love and Unity. (Continued), 165 

XII. Christ- Like Love and Unity. (Continued), 179 

XIII. The Bond of Perfection, 191 

XIV. Gifts, 205 

XV. A Christ-Like Ministry, 215 

XVI. A Christ-Like Ministry. (Continued), . 229 

XVII. Entire Sanctification of Believers, ... 239 

XVIII. Divine Guidance, . 255 

XIX. Divine Guidance. (Continued), .... 269 



INTRODUCTION. 

There are many sources of religious knowledge — read- 
ing (pre-eminently the Scriptures and acknowledged 
orthodox standards of theology), reverent attendance 
upon the most profitable means of grace, travel, observa- 
tion, experience, prayer, the enlightenment of the Holy 
Ghost, and others that might be mentioned. Brother 
Dempster has enjoyed and properly used all these in 
common with many others. But, from his childhood, 
gradually emerging from a system of time-honored error, 
compelled to examine most carefully the very funda- 
mentals of universal religion, forced to conscientiously 
differ from his early teachers and relatives and best 
earthly friends, becoming more and more accustomed to 
independence of thought and study and action, passing 
through the deepest and most radical personal religious 
experiences, advancing steadily under such unfavorable 
environments into the most advanced acceptance and 
advocacy of the very highest saintliness — all these, and 
others that might be indicated, impart a clearness and 
force and value to his pulpit and published views that 
entitle them to unusual attention. 

The sweet spirit of this holy man of God, the intense 
fervency of his whole redeemed nature; his Christ-like 

5 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

sympathy with, unsaved humanity; his catholic charity 
for the universal brotherhood of man ; his varied experi- 
ences in the most practical and radical and successful pro- 
mulgation of the truths that have been burned into his 
deepest convictions by the Holy Ghost; his lifelong 
struggle with honest doubts and fears into the marvelous 
light of uttermost salvation; his loyalty and love to the 
church of the living God; his ever-increasing gracious 
and glorious victories in pressing the truth as it is in 
Jesus — all add to his claims for audience and acceptance 
with those who love the truth, and in so doing love the 
light on mind and heart and life. 

The sermons in this volume are the ripe fruit of many 
years of such saintly explorations and gracious acquisi- 
tions. He evidently has "the secret of the Lord." He 
evidently discerns "the mind of the Spirit." He has 
"digged deep" and brought forth the richest treasures 
of sacred store. He evidently is gifted not only with 
natural wisdom, but with deep spiritual discernment. 
He has absorbed the exceeding great and precious prom- 
ises and privileges of the saints in all ages and in all 
places, whether in the Eoman Catholic or Protestant 
communions, and in this volume evidences how gladly 
he holds himself ready to share his treasures with all 
those who "covet earnestly the best gifts," and are 
equally ready to be shown the "more excellent way" of 

6 



INTRODUCTION. 

pure and perfect love as depicted by the holy apostle 
Paul in the immortal thirteenth chapter of First Corinth- 
ians. 

To view these sacred and Scriptural truths through 
the eyes of one whose whole religious training has been 
so different from almost all our evangelists who are 
laboring for the promotion of holiness, is an advantage 
not to be lightly esteemed but eagerly accepted. We 
believe thousands will welcome this book, because of its 
authorship, because of its antecedents and environments, 
because of its inherent and essential truth, and because 
of the many-sided lights in which that truth is presented. 

Indeed, so judiciously has Brother Dempster presented 
his transformed opinions that he has won, even from his 
Koman Catholic hearers, a respectful attention that 
never can be gained by anybody by personal abuse, by 
ecclesiastical denunciation, by a zeal that is neither 
according to knowledge, or charity, or reason, or common 
sense. "We are hoping that, as they have listened 
patiently to his ministry, even they may be won to read 
these published utterances. His former publications 
have met with wide circulation. We earnestly hope 
these discourses will be received with the same favor. 

Our personal acquaintance with the author, our asso- 
ciation with him in "the movement for the promotion of 
holiness," our own personal pleasure and profit from his 

7 



"bread from'heaven." 

private conversation and public ministry have greatly 
endeared him to us. We are happy to introduce him 
more widely than ever through this volume to our throng 
of intelligent and appreciative readers. 

E. I. D. PEPPER. 

Editorial rooms of the Christian Standard, 
Philadelphia, May, 1899. 



PKEFACE. 

Life is too short and souls are too valuable to engage 
much of our time in issues or non-essentials. All are 
seeking a short way to perfect peace, and the shortest 
way pointed out in the Scriptures, is by repentance and 
faith in Jesus, to be at peace with God, and a complete 
consecration and acceptance of the blood of the Lamb, 
by simple and pure faith, for the entire sanctification of 
the soul. This is the only road to perfect peace and joy 
in the Holy Ghost. Our heat is to be as great as our 
light, which is only another way of saying be what you 
profess. Many good, noble, and affectionate souls who 
are truly God's children need light, that they may have 
heat — the heat and fire of full salvation, which is none 
other but the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They want 
to know God more perfectly, serve Him with all their 
hearts; and still many of them, when they hear of the 
sanctified life or come across the ordinary means of 
Christian perfection, form a wrong conception of it. It 
is as if some one spoke to them in an unknown tongue, 
and they stand off from those who profess to teach this 
gracious state of grace, as if they had some contagious 
disease which they might catch themselves. Often they 
are men and women who have made a great sacrifice to 

9 



God. ISTo one can deny bnt that they want something 
which they lack in their souls, the absence of which puts 
them in a most mournful disability, in the way of obtain- 
ing that which would enable them to have perpetual 
victory. In other words, there are many who, though 
they are fully assured that their sins are forgiven and 
that they have been adopted into God's family, are well 
aware that they cannot continue living without relapses 
unless they receive the mighty baptism of the Holy 
Spirit, which alone will enable them to be more than 
conquerors in their onward march from earth to Heaven. 
Then there are many others who, though they have 
entered into the gracious experience of full salvation, 
need the gift refired within them, and at times become 
perplexed over difficulties which present themselves; to 
all such of God's family no matter what denomination 
they belong to, whether a Catholic or a Protestant, I 
dedicate this little volume, praying the Blessed Jesus, 
that it will aid you in interior development in a holy life, 
and that amid the whirl of evil around you, you may be 
able to prove by divine omnipotence Christ's ability, not 
only to deliver from all sin both actual and inherent, but 
that you may prove His power to enable you to keep 
living and spreading the fragrance of a holy life which 
alone comes from a heart filled with perfect love. 
I pray that all those who devoutly and honestly read 



PREFACE. 

these pages will pray for the Author. Be assured my 
heart is moved to help you. I have learned to know that 
truth can only have its desired effect when it is written 
or spoken from a heart filled with Christlike compassion 
for all men. It would be much better not to write or 
speak a truth ungraciously, for this would be to present 
a good dish badly cooked, or administer medicine 
unseasonably. For the real truth of justice and the real 
justice of truth resides only in love. A judicious silence 
is always preferable to a truth not written or spoken in 
the Spirit of Jesus. 

Every line which I have penned of this little volume 
has been written after I had implored Jesus to keep me 
steeped in His sweetness. Conscious of my infirmities, 
and my poor, fallible judgment, I pray God that, above 
all and before all, Jesus may be glorified in the present- 
ing of this little work to my brethren in the Gospel. 

THE AUTnOE. 



The Knowledge of God. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

The Scriptures distinctly teach that God created man 
in His own image and likeness, that after He formed bim 
out of the slime of the earth He breathed into him a 
living soul. Man by disobedience fell; Justice demanded 
retribution, but Mercy, in the person of the Son of God, 
met Justice, and declared that four thousand years from 
the fall of our first parents He would pay the price and 
meet the demand of Justice by bleeding and dying on 
Golgotha's Mount. Man by disobedience was stripped 
of his original purity, driven out of the Garden of Eden 
to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and con- 
demned to death, with all his posterity. They who lived 
before Christ became man were saved by the belief of 
a Redeemer to come, and by keeping the commandments 
of God. Many of the old patriarchs lived in advance of 
their dispensation, and not only enjoyed the blessing 
of regeneration, but also the blessing of entire sanctifi- 
cation. If you turn to Hebrews 11: 13, you will find 
that it is declared that these old patriarchs and prophets 
lived not only according to what they believed, but that 
they also died in the faith; although they had not 
received the promises they had seen them afar off, and 

*5 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

looking down the vista of time they saw by faith the 
first advent, the incarnation, the death and burial of 
Jesus, the resurrection, the ascension from Mount Olivet, 
the descent of the Holy Ghost, the fulfillment of the 
promise of the Father. They believed in death, judg- 
ment, hell and heaven. They were convinced of the 
promises, identified themselves with them, testified that 
they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth; they 
lived and died according to what they believed. Man 
in his fallen state was depraved, ruined, lost; he needed 
a Savior. Four thousand years after the fall of our first 
parents, the Son of God became incarnate, and after 
thirty years of private life and three years of public 
ministry, He paid the price of man's redemption upon 
the cross, and by His victorious resurrection, the third 
day after His crucifixion, proved Himself to be God, and 
conqueror of earth, hell and sin, and death. Jesus paid 
the price for man's redemption, and all may be saved 
who will comply with the Gospel conditions, which are 
so plainly taught in the word of God. By repentance 
and faith in the Lord Jesus we become new creatures. 
Old things have passed away, and behold! they have be- 
come new. (2 Corinthians, 5 : 17, R. V.) Not only have 
we provisional or imputed righteousness, but also im- 
parted righteousness. We receive a new life, we have 
a new birth, we are born again; new senses, new 

16 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

faculties, new appetites, new ideas, new conceptions. 
We are spiritually born of the Holy Spirit. We have 
received Him in a gracious sense. He witnesses to our 
adoption; our names are written in Heaven, and this 
work of regeneration is a complete work in itself. "We 
are elevated on an equality with Jesus Himself in son- 
ship. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the 
right to become the children of God. (John 1:12, 
E. V.) "Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children 
of God, and such we are." (1 John, 3 : 1, R. V.) We no 
longer commit voluntary and known sin. "Whosoever 
is begotten of God doeth no sin." (1 John, 3: 9, R. V.) 
Someone will say, "if I am a new creature in Christ 
Jesus, if I have received a new heart, where is the need 
for a second work of grace?" Now you see, beloved, 
that a new heart and a clean heart are not synonymous. 
When a child is born into this world, you would not 
doubt but that the child was a perfect child, a brand new 
baby, but we are all well aware that that child after 
birth requires to be sanctified. This is not some new 
doctrine that is just sprung upon us. All the Evangelical 
churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, teach 
that after regeneration, there still remains the seed 
principle of sin, — or carnal nature in the heart of the 
believer, though many of them have different theories 

17 



'bread from heaven." 

for its removal; but John informs us in his Epistles that 
the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy 
the works of the Devil. (1 John, 3: 8.) So you see that 
we do not undervalue the gracious work of regeneration, 
for we are confident, in the language of Mr. Wesley, 
that no one is a proper candidate for the blessing of entire 
sanctification until he has the evidence of his adoption. 
So that, looking into the face of his Heavenly Father by 
faith, he can say, 

My God is reconciled, 

His pardoning voice I hear, 

He owns me as His child, 
I can no longer fear. 

His heart spontaneously breaks out thus, 

I have called Thee, Abba, Father, 

I have set my heart on Thee, 
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather, 

All must work for good to me. 

But I presume that the reader is a child of God, that 
you know that your sins are forgiven, and that you are 
adopted into God's own family, but still you want to 
know Him in His fullness, and you are willing to count 
all things but loss for the excellency of this knowledge. 
You are willing to suffer the will of God that you may 
win Christ and be found in Him. Your heart is after 
real personal knowledge; you want the power of His 
resurrection in you. Paul had this knowledge; you may 

18 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

have it. It is worth all that you can give. You count 
the cost, pay the price, leave the future in His hands, 
accept Him in His fullness. You yield, trust, obey. You 
have got done counting the cost forever; you have taken 
the shoes from off your feet, you are now standing upon 
holy ground. It will pay to let your foundation go down 
deep and well. You have got done with the principles 
of the doctrines of Christ; you are letting Him bear you 
on to perfection of love. Some never get beyond the foun- 
dation; they seem to be all foundation and no superstruc- 
ture; they are unfinished towers; they seem to be ever 
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the 
truth ; seem to be all roots and no fruit. They are seldom 
seen above ground; you will hear them often quoting the 
old proverb, "Well begun is half done," but after all a 
half done thing even if to be only a cake that we are bak- 
ing is not much to be proud of. God uses this very simile 
on some of His ancient people; "Ephraim is a cake not 
turned." (Hosea 8: 8.) How many seem to be burned 
on one side and dough on the other. God wants us not 
to be top-heavy or bottom-heavy Christians, but you are 
in for this excellency of knowledge in Christ Jesus. 
Geologists may glory in geology, astronomers in their 
knowledge of astronomy, the botanist in the study of the 
most delicate flower, the gifted in his gifts, the theo- 
logian in his study of the attributes and mysteries of God 

19 



"bread from heaven." 

(which after all is but the product of mentalities), the 
classic in his classics, the intellectual in his intellect- 
uality; but what does it all amount to, if we do not know 
God? To know Iiim by history, to know Him by His 
foot-prints in nature, to know Him in the depth of 
intellectual thought, to know Him in ceremony ; all thi9 
may be good as far as it goes, but it is poor bread for the 
moral being to live on. But to know Him experimentally 
as the indwelling Christ, is to satisfiy the hunger of the 
moral man, so that he considers all things but dung for 
the excellency of this knowledge. There is so little of 
this knowledge, comparatively speaking, in the world. 
But it is our privilege to know Him and to have fellow- 
ship in His sufferings and to know the power of His 
resurrection. When our consecration is complete, by 
faith, we can receive the Holy Spirit as our indwelling 
Sanctifier. He will give us grace to hold fast our con- 
fidence, so that we need not retreat, to keep our eye 
looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. 
He, the Bread sent down from Heaven, satisfies the 
hungry soul; He aids us to appropriate His promises; we 
learn to know the thoughts that He thinks towards us, 
which are thoughts of peace. When we seek Him with 
all our heart, He will seek us and find us. In times of 
distress and affliction, you will find God's foundations to 
be stones with fair colors, and all His borders pleasant 

20 



THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOD. 

stones, and His establishment to be in righteousness. 
God comes to do wonderful things for us, whereof we 
are glad. He longs to come and dwell in us. Self which 
we loathed and abhorred is gone out; we sink into 
insignificance as He, the Holy Spirit, enters the heart. 
The Comforter comes in to abide, to console, to exhort, 
to lead, to illumine, to glorifiy Jesus, to reveal the 
Christ; in a deeper sense than He has ever done before. 
We cannot help but love Him, to give Him the adoration 
of the heart, to ascribe to Him all honor and glory. He 
has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, 
has washed our robes in the Blood of the Lamb, has 
given us palms of victory so that we can be overcomers, 
and has crowned us with crowns of honor. We can wave 
our palms of victory, and if faithful unto the end, He 
will give us crowns of immortal glory. He has brought 
us into the Holy of Holies. We not only eat of the tree 
of life, but of the hidden manna. He has given us the 
white stone and the new name, which no man knoweth, 
saving him that receiveth it. We give unto Him honor 
and glory as never before. We realize that the precious 
Blood does save and sanctify. The blessed Spirit does 
not call attention so much unto Himself as He does to 
Jesus, for, when the Comforter comes, whom I will send 
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, 
which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

of Me (Jesus). (John 15: 26, E. V.) "Howbeit, when 
He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into 
all the truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, but 
what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak, 
and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come; 
He shall glorify me (not gifts, but Jesus), and He shall 
take of mine and shall declare it unto you. All things 
whatsoever the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, 
that He taketh of mine and shall declare it unto you." 
(John 16: 13-16, K. V.) How blessed our whole 
theology is all in five letters, J-E-S-U-S! Jesus, the 
Pardoner of our sins, the Sanctifier of our nature, the 
foundation of our spiritual internal structure, the balm 
of all our wounds, the Guide in all our perplexities, the 
hope in all our discouragements, the light in all our 
darkness. When we cannot feel or see or trace, He is 
our joy in all our sorrows. This causes the soul to sing 
and shout and magnify the Lord our God continually. 
He does not come to reveal any new truth to us, but to 
aid us to understand the old truth which Jesus spoke. 
He teaches and brings all things to our remembrance, 
whatsoever Jesus said. He illuminates the word. He 
aids us to remember it, so that we can be guided by it 
in our every-day life. He keeps us filled with His 
presence, so that we can search into the deep things of 
God, teaching us not to lean unto our own understand- 

22 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

ing. We esteem the words of His month more than our 
necessary food. They are sweeter than honey and the 
honeycomb. We love to meditate therein day and 
night. We exult in His promises. We live on His 
bread alone, the word of life which proceeds out of the 
mouth of God, for no man ever spake like Him. The 
abundance of His grace and life has taken possession of 
us. Our capacity is small; still He fills us with the 
perfect knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom 
and spiritual understanding; so that we may walk in all 
loyalty before Him in love, bearing frnit in every good 
work, increasing in the knowledge of God, strenghtened 
with all might according to the might of His glory unto 
all patience and long suffering, with joy, giving thanks 
unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the 
inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us 
out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the 
kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have our 
redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. He is the image 
of the invisible God. It is wonderful, wonderful to 
experience the abundance of joy and peace and per- 
ception of God's touch which greets us as we enter the 
companionship of those who have been cleansed from all 
sin in the blood of the Lamb. We become accepted in 
the Beloved, and as the beloved of God, we drink abunt- 
antly and rejoice with joy unspeakable at the inexhaust- 

23 



1 ' BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' ' 

ible supply of divine grace, love and life, which He has 
made us partakers of. "I am come that they may have 
life and may have it abundantly." (John 10: 10, K. V.) 
We learn now to look within, from the center to the 
circumference to obey the voice within, for the kingdom 
of God which is within is righteousness and peace and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. We have entered into everlasting 
peace, everlasting joy, and this experience of perfect love 
which we have entered into, may last forever. Such is 
our privilege if weyield, trust and obey. What an interior 
holy hush, heavenly calm, Christlike quietness, blessed 
rest comes into the soul when we receive the witness to 
the entire sanctification of our souls. What a depth, 
what a hallowedness, what a silence! Here we reach 
something of His strength, His power. Here we get to 
know the depth of our weakness, our littleness, our noth- 
ingness. True, the finite mind can never grasp the 
infinite, but He is revealed to the abandoned, humble 
and believing soul. The soul breaks into tender love and 
interior heavenly melting before the love fire of the 
blessed Spirit. We enter into His life. Here the Holy 
Spirit leads us slowly, noiselessly and with simplicity. 
Oh, the length and breadth, depth and height of the love 
of God which He gives the true, honest, sincere and 
believing soul to revel in. Oh, beloved, when we dis- 
cover it and allow our faith to take hold, we need not be 

24 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

afraid that we shall be barren or desolate, or that our 
experience will give out, for if we bring all the tithes 
into the store house and give Him half a chance to open 
the windows of Heaven, He will open the flood gates of 
glory and pour out and down into our souls not only the 
uncontainable, but at times the uncontrollable blessing. 
His infinite resources have not and never can be 
exhausted. The wonders of His wisdom, His goodness, 
His grace and glory are above all that we can ask or 
think, and which will occupy all time and all eternity 
to contemplate. We have asked for and received Him. 
This surpasses our righteousness, our piety, our religious- 
ness, our holiness. It surpasses theory, forms, cere- 
monies; it outstrips baptismal regeneration or sacra- 
mental conformation; it baffles plenary indulgences, and 
by faith you may give a hop, step and a leap over the 
Purgatorian flames and enter into the sweet haven of 
rest. It baffles the natural man, be he ever so ritualistic 
or legalistic. It is that which makes us more then con- 
querors, saves us on the one hand from being pessimistic, 
and on the other hand from a sentimental optimism, 
which believes that things are going to turn out right 
without a holy, daring, aggressiveness for God and souls. 
It enables us to face all manner of persecution without 
murmuring or complaining, for we know that Jesus has 
and will be an eternal success. Though surrounded by 

25 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

a world of sin and a great deal of wickedness in the pro- 
fessing church, still we are aided in this blessed life of 
perfect love to live at the south side of the altar; knowing 
that the time is coming, when He (Jesus) shall abolish 
all rule and all authority and all power, and that He (our 
Jesus) must reign till He hath put all His enemies under 
His feet, even the last enemy, which is death, and when 
all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the 
Son also Himself be subjected unto Him, that did sub- 
ject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all. 



26 



Poverty the Foundation of Spiritual Wealth. 



CHAPTER II. 

POVERTY THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEALTH. 

The secret of this life hid with Christ in God is that 
we found out our utter helplessness, our destitution, our 
poverty; that we have got down to the deepest recesses 
of our moral nature and found out that the foundation 
of spiritual wealth is in poverty of spirit, for the deeper 
we go down into our own nothingness, the richer and 
more blessed is the gold we discover in this mine. Jesus 
declares that the poor in spirit are blessed, and that theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven. Wonderful words ! The poor 
in spirit declared blessed; their inheritance, the kingdom 
of God; not merely to be enjoyed hereafter, but the 
kingdom of God in this present life, the kingdom of God, 
which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
This poverty of spirit is the mine from which may be 
dug the wealth that enriches our own hearts, not only 
here, but hereafter. It is the mine from which we can 
dig to find the hid treasures, that we may be enabled 
by divine grace and the spirit of wisdom and revelation 
to impart to others. He, our Divine Model, left Heaven 
for us in order to come to the manger to have His im- 
maculate body laid upon straw. Nothing but the breath 

of beasts to defend Him from the cold, in order to teach 

29 



" BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

us this deep lesson of Christ-like poverty. It was the 
first lesson He taught us on entering into this world, 
and the last upon the cross, when dying in His naked- 
ness, Joseph of Arimathea was compelled to buy Him 
a winding-sheet in order to cover His mangled form. 
His entire life, from Bethlehem to Calvary was one of 
poverty. He had not wherewith to pay His tribute 
money when asked of Him, nor a house to eat the pascal 
supper with His disciples, and during His entire public 
ministry He had not a home wherein to lay His weary 
head, for He declares "the foxes have holes, the birds of 
the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not whereon 
to lay His head. (Matt. 8 :20.) Poverty of spirit is the true 
foundation of Christian perfection; hence we find that, 
if we be perfect, we must go and sell all we have, and 
give to the poor, and follow Jesus. This is the standard 
of Christ-like abandonment, which makes us like the 
members of the Apostolic Church. "We sell out all that 
we have, houses, lands, all that we are. So we trod under 
foot the riches of this world in order that we may 
partake of the deep things of God and enter into the 
sweet rest of faith. Poverty of spirit is the foundation 
of the truly sanctified life. As in this world the estates 
of great families are founded upon riches, so, on the 
contrary, the foundation of Christian perfection is built 
upon poverty of spirit. As the wilfully impenitent can 

30 



POVERTY THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEALTH. 

never find the Savior until he has discovered his lost 
condition, so the believer can never enter into the bless- 
ing of perfect love until he discovers the poverty of his 
spiritual nature. If we would lay our foundations deep 
and well, in this exalted life of holiness, if we are to 
enter into this glorious life of perfect love, if we are to 
wage a successful warfare against the kingdom of dark- 
ness it will be necessary for us not only in words and 
in mere thought, but down into the depth of our heart 
of hearts to make a complete and unreserved abandon- 
ment to God, in order that He may carry out His 
redemptive purposes, in and through us, in the winning 
of souls and in the bringing of the pentecostal baptism 
upon the church. Otherwise vain will be our attempts 
to impart this wealth of spiritual knowledge to others. 
If we will inquire into the cause of the zeal and fervor 
and heroism of the Apostolic Church, of their daring, 
of their aggressiveness, of their rushing to martyrdom, 
we will find that like the Apostle Paul they had counted 
all things but dung, for the excellency of the knowledge 
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. They had dis- 
engaged themselves from worldly trammels; they had 
stripped themselves of everything that was unholy in 
order to follow their Lord, for as covetousness is the root 
of all selfishness, so poverty of spirit is the fundamental 
of all spiritual riches, the mother of all spiritual advance- 

3i 



"bread from heaven." 

merit, because it produces and nourishes all other 
spiritual virtues. How important it is, then, for us to 
deepen down into it, so that seeing our utter destitution, 
we may be enriched with the riches of the heavenly 
kingdom, which is promised to the poor of spirit. The 
young man who came to Jesus, which is recorded in the 
gospel of Matthew, felt his need of Christian perfection, 
for you can see at a moment's glance that he had 
informed our divine Lord that he had done no murder, 
committed no adultery, that he was honest, had not borne 
any false witness against his neighbor, honored his father 
and mother, that he had loved his neighbor as himself, 
and though a child of God, not a mere moralist as some 
teach, but one who had entered into spiritual life, that 
still he bad not found out that poverty of spirit which 
would have made him blessed. He may have seen the 
truth intellectually, his sensibilities may have been 
touched, but the covetous desire after riches held him 
back from this blessed experience, because he would not 
obey our divine Lord in going and selling all that he had 
in order to enter down into the mine of the wealth of the 
inheritance of the saints. The love of riches is bound 
to impede your progress in the spiritual life. Like many 
of to-day he had a great attachment to riches. If we do 
not want to be like this young man we must absolutely 
abandon ourselves and all that we have in order that we 

32 



POVERTY THK FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEALTH. 

may obtain the experience which is annexed to this 
absolute abandonment. Is it not a privilege to exchange 
all, even our very life, in order to enter into this life 
which is hid with Christ in God? Can we make a 
bargain more advantageous than in abandoning the little 
we possess in this world for this priceless pearl of full 
salvation? Like the merchantman who sold all and 
bought the pearl of greatest price, so let us sell out all, 
that we may enjoy this priceless pearl of perfect love. 
For every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or 
sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands 
for My name's sake, shall have a hundred fold, and shall 
inherit everlasting life. This hundred fold is to be 
enjoyed in this present life, for "he shall receive an 
hundred fold now at this time and eternal life hereafter 
in the world to come." (Mark 10: 30.) So you see in 
conformity to the words of Mark the entirely sanctified 
will receive this hundred fold and have the enjoyment 
of it in this life. "We who have left one home for the 
love of Christ, God has given us many. We who have 
forsaken one father and one mother, God has given us 
many fathers and mothers who love us in and for God, 
take care of us, and are solicitous for our welfare. How 
I have proven this! "We who have quitted our brothers 
and sisters, God has given us others whose Christ-like 
love is more sincere, because having put God in view, 

33 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' ' 

their Christ-like love is free from self-interest. Their love 
is in and for God. We who have left those who have 
waited upon us in this world, now find a great number 
always ready at our service. One serves as our steward, 
another as our porter, a third as a cook, a fourth as a 
waiter, the fifth to nurse us when we are sick, and what 
is more, when we travel from one end of the country 
to the other, the sanctified ones are ready to meet us and 
to welcome us into their homes. Having forsaken one 
pulpit for Jesus' sake, and the cause of holiness so dear 
to our hearts, God opens hundreds of other doors which 
no man can shut. Is not this to receive a hundred fold? 
Is not this proof that when we abandon all and become 
poor in spirit, we become masters even of the riches of 
this world in a much larger sense than the worldling 
who actually possesses them? They are rather slaves 
than masters, for their riches do not belong to them, but 
they to their riches. Since their riches command and 
domineer over them, they continually take pains to get, 
to increase and to keep their riches; and the more they 
have got, the more uneasy and the greater slaves they 
are. Their wealth robs them of their sleep. On the 
contrary, we who have abandoned all to God have all 
we need provided for us, whether the year be scarce or 
plenty. He has promised to supply all our needs, accord- 
ing to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ~No good thing 

34 



POVERTY THF* FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEAI/TH. 

does He withhold from them that walk uprightly. So 
that truthfully we cau say, that while we have nothing, 
yet we possess all things. Ask those who are not enjoy- 
ing the blessing of perfect love, those who have not 
entered into perfect rest, those who have not abandoned 
all to God, that while they know they have been con- 
verted, born of the spirit, regenerated, and they will 
inform you that at times there are inward disquiets and 
restlessness, which the wholly sanctified are exempt 
from. As to honor, you who seek the honor that cometh 
from God only, you find it in a deeper sense than before 
you were sanctified. Bishops, doctors of divinity, judges, 
magistrates, men and women who have never taken 
notice of you, now pay you deference and come to listen 
to what you have to say. Take, for instance, the case 
of Sister Amanda Smith, that remarkable heroine of 
God, who has charmed thousands by her simple 
testimony, who has traveled a great part of the world, 
and who has been an instrument in God's hands in 
bringing thousands to the feet of Jesus, it is not too 
much to say that God returns with usury whatever we 
have abandoned for His sake. This He does because we 
have disengaged our hearts from all things of this world, 
and because we are seeking nothing else but the salvation 
of the lost, the reclamation of the wanderer, and the 
sanctification of the church. The time that would have 

35 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

been spent in looking after ourselves, is now devoted to 
the saving of others. How truly the Psalmist testifies 
when he says, "He brought forth His people with joy 
and His chosen with gladness." (Psalm 145: 43.) It is 
for this reason that God Himself speaks by the mouth of 
Ezekiel, "I am their inheritance. I am their possession." 
So truly we can say that we are declared blessed, because 
having got down to this poverty of spirit, we find the 
divine and heavenly riches, and having disengaged our 
souls from all embarrassments, we soar more easily into 
the revelations of God, and unite ourselves more inti- 
mately to Him as we develop in the sanctified life. But 
the recompense which the Son of God promises the poor 
in spirit does not end in this life. He promises still more. 
You say can there be anything more than the enjoyment 
of the kingdom of heaven within you? Yes; for as there 
are in this world degrees of honor and command, so 
there are glories and excellencies to be enjoyed hereafter 
in our full redemption. Christ, upon the young man's 
unwillingness to sell all he had to follow Him, took the 
occasion to show the difficulty which hinders so many 
from entering into the experience of Christian perfection. 
And Peter having said we have left all to follow Thee, 
Jesus said unto him, "Verily, I say unto you that ye 
which have followed Me when the Son of man shall sit 
in the throne of His glory, ye shall sit upon the twelve 

36 



POVERTY THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEALTH. 

thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt 
19: 28.) These words are extended to all those who 
have abandoned everything and sold out in order to 
invest in heavenly treasures. So we see that if we allow 
God to keep us in the sanctified life, we shall appear at 
the great tribunal of God, not as criminals, but as judges, 
to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. We shall be seated 
with the Judge of heaven. This is the privilege of all 
those who persevere. Be thou forever blessed, oh thou 
blessed Jesus! who has thus honored the sanctified ones, 
those who become poor out of love for Thee. Thou art 
not alone content to give them the kingdom of God 
within them here, and the Spirit as their Comforter, but 
if they are faithful unto the end, Thou designest to 
advance them to the glory of sitting with Thee as judges 
to judge the whole human family. Is it not enough to 
make our minds dizzy when we contemplate that He has 
said, "To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with 
Me in My throne, even as I also overcame and set down 
with My Father in His throne." (Eev. 3 : 21.) Perhaps 
it would be well for us to find out in what true poverty 
consists. Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." 
By these words He declares this ought to be in the heart, 
proving to us that it is not enough to forsake the world 
externally, but we must renounce it in very spirit and 
truth, in order that we may more easily follow Him and 

37 



"bread from heaven." 

devote ourselves entirely to the carrying out of His 
divine wall. The disciples had not alone forsaken all, 
but they had followed Jesus. The Son of God does not 
say that verily I say unto you that you have left all, but 
you have followed me. Here we see that the leaving of 
all is not the essential part, for many Roman Catholics 
by entering into monasteries and convents go thus far 
and in fact. Many heathen philosophers, such as 
Diogenes and Antisthenes, have gone thus far. So that 
the great essential is not merely in leaving all, but after- 
ward in following Jesus, "For if any man will be My 
disciple," says Jesus, "let him deny himself daily, take 
up his cross and follow Me." I do not mean to say that 
it is necessary to take your lands and property and money 
and spread it all around foolishly, because I am con- 
fident that you, like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who 
were very rich men, and Joseph who was next to 
Pharaoh in power and wealth, and Job, who had great 
possessions, and David, who was a powerful monarch, 
and Daniel and his companions, who were great men of 
authority, and several others who lived in all the 
splendor and greatness this world could afford, and yet 
with absolute disengagement from all earthly things 
which is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sign of 
true poverty of the spirit. So that where riches abound 
set not thy heart upon them. 

38 



POVERTY THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WEALTH. 

So we see in this subject that there are two things 
necessary in order to enter down into this deep mine. 
The first is, we must abandon everything into the hands 
of God; and secondly, we must retain no attachment for 
them. Xow to my mind and heart this second is the 
principal; because disengaging our hearts from all 
earthly things places us in the position where we can 
truthfully say, We and all we have belong to God. 
Certainly the first is necessary, but the second is the great 
essential. So that having placed ourselves in the hands 
of our Heavenly Father, all fret and worry is taken 
away, because we no longer belong to ourselves; for 
having given Him a warranty deed of the entire prop- 
erty, we belong to Him. We are not our own. We are 
bought with a price, even the precious blood. Some of 
us may not have much to leave, for, like Peter, we were 
always poor, earning our bread by the sweat of our brow, 
but with confidence we can say we have left all. And 
not only can we say we have left all, but we have left it 
willingly, and reserved nothing to ourselves. We have 
quit, and we have allowed Him to come in to take up 
His abode within us. This is the nature of true poverty 
of spirit, the absolute disengagement from all worldly 
desires; so that, with the Apostle Paul, we count all 
things but filth and endure that we may gain Christ. 
It follows from what I have already said, if we forsake 

39 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

the world and do not at the same time disengage our 
affections from all that is unholy, we cannot be truly 
poor in spirit, for Christlike poverty of spirit not only 
consists in the external abandonment of everything, but 
principally in getting under the fire of pentecost where 
all unholy attachments are burned out. If any unholy 
inclination to them still remains in you, you cannot be 
truly said to have brought them to the altar where the 
fire falls. You have only transplanted them out of the 
world into religion, and we must bear in mind that self- 
ishness in religion is as bad as selfishness in hell. Many, 
I'm afraid, are only religious in exterior, that is, their 
body is in religion, while their better part is in the world. 
I am afraid that a great many who have at one time in 
their life left all, have allowed trifles, such as ecclesiastical 
honor, literary attainments to be thought wise, good and 
successful and prudent in the eyes of their superiors, 
which has robbed them of the very nature of true 
poverty of spirit, and in time of temptation have allowed 
their heart's affections to become engaged with these 
little things which has robbed them of the peace and 
joy, purity and power which they once enjoyed. I am 
sometimes at a loss to find men who were once shining 
and burning lights for God in the commencement of 
their ministry, and were powerful in winning souls to 
their Lord, who for some little, petty, trifling honor, have 

40 



POVERTY THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL WKAI/TH. 

allowed the holy spirit to depart from them. How well 
the words of our divine Lord to the Jews might be 
applied to them, when He said, "How can you believe 
who seek honor, one of another, and seek not the honor 
that comes from God only?" (John 5: 44.) In the 
depth of our nothingness is where Heaven's door is 
thrown open to us, and the wealth of Heaven's wisdom 
and power and faith and love is at our disposal, and 
where we can shout and triumph and march on to con- 
quest when others tremble, fail and fly. Here is where 
strength is found and where we can become more than 
conquerors in the very face of Death and Hell. 



41 



A Life of Perfect Submission. 



CHAPTEE III. 

A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

What a depth of meaning in the words of Jesus as He 
falls on His face in the garden of Gethsemane and prays, 
"If it be possible let this cup pass away. Nevertheless 
not as I will, but as Thou wilt." The life of perfect sub- 
mission to the will of God is truly a life of blessedness, 
though it means great suffering which never can be 
described even to our nearest or dearest friends. In this 
life of submission of the Son of God to His Father, we 
see the excess of His love, so also this interior life of sub- 
mission to God on our part, tests and proves the love 
which we have toward Jesus. Having entered into this 
blessed life of perfect love, this hidden life, we are 
taught the lesson to live or die for the convictions which 
are begotten in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. When 
I say convictions, I do not mean whims or opinions or 
mere fancies or even purposes or abstract truths, but I 
mean a conviction that is begotten in the soul by God, 
a truth which has become incarnate. Such had Martin 
Luther, the great reformer, when the Holy Spirit begot 
in his moral being that the just shall live by faith ; such 
had George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, 
who for his convictions gladly suffered imprisonment in 

45 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 



Derby jail before surrendering; such bad Jobn Wesley 
when he discovered by reading the Word that a man was 
justified before he was sanctified; for such did Mathias 
gladly go to martyrdom in Abyssinia, Africa; for such 
was Andrew crucified in Armenia; for such did Jude 
seal the truth with his own blood, being tied up to a tree 
and riddled with arrows; for such was John cast into 
boiling soap, Paul was beheated by Nero, Peter was 
crucified with his head downward, Bartholomew was 
skinned to death, Stephen was stoned, Thomas had an 
iron bar run through his body, Philip was martyred in 
Northern Asia, Luke was hung on an olive tree in 
Greece, Luther was hunted like a mad dog and excom- 
municated from Romanism, and Wesley was rotten- 
egged by the mob and derided by the clergy of the 
Episcopacy. Men and women do not go to the stake for 
opinions, but they will joyfully die for a divinely 
inspired and inwrought conviction, suffer hunger and 
nakedness, bid adieu to a fond father and a loving 
mother and home and fortune and all worldly prospects, 
cheerfully give up all, consider it a privilege to suffer, 
to be laughed at, scorned, condemned, in order to be 
loyal to what God has inwrought in their souls, and 
glory in the privilege of having fellowship with Jesus 
in His suffering. The soul that lives in perfect sub- 
mission to the divine will must be a soul of God-given 

46 



A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

conviction; conviction which is written indelibly upon 
moral nature; conviction which is the voice of God in the 
soul which is divine and partakes of the very nature of 
God; conviction which is able to discern the differ- 
ence between fatalism, that says it is God's will 
for this and that to happen, and that which is 
only permitted by divine providences, which in many 
instances is in direct antagonism to the will of God. 
After we have exercised our best common sense as far 
as our poor, fallible judgment may see, sought the 
council of holy men as well as the illumination of the 
Spirit through the Word, then we should rest about the 
unavoidable, and perfectly submit to the divine will, 
taking all as coming from His permissible providences, 
so that in humble and perfect submission to the will of 
Him, who has declared that "all things work together 
for good to them who love God and are the called accord- 
ing to His purpose." (Roman 8: 28.) I do not mean 
to say that we will not feel intensely the inward suffer- 
ing, humanly speaking, but living this life of perfect 
submission, the soul gladly suffers in unity and sympathy 
with Jesus. Advancement in the life of perfect love 
depends largely, if not altogether, on our perfect sub- 
mission to the will of God. The most excellent, sublime 
practice of perfect love is to be absolutely and perfectly 
submissive to His will, so that every moment we can say, 

47 



"bread from heaven." 

"I am abandoned to God," as the true wife and husband 
seek not to do their own will, but their joy is in doing 
the will of each other, and in so doing their two wills 
become one. As we develop in the life of perfect love, 
we soon discover that there is nothing more conducive to 
peace and joy, inward rest and advancement in the life 
of holiness than perfect and unreserved submission to 
God's will, and our joy being to do His will, knowing 
that it is His joy to will and do His good pleasure in us. 
Heavenly union with the will of God. Here we find 
that there is nothing to harm us as long as we are con- 
fident that He has permitted such to occur. He will not 
allow anything to overcome us, for He has an account 
of the hairs of our head, and He will not allow one of 
them to fall to the ground without His knowledge. The 
two sparrows sold for one farthing fall not to the ground 
without His permission. Since all these things are per- 
mitted to happen to us, we humbly bow in humble sub- 
mission to Him who has brought us into the secret life of 
profound tranquillity. If you desire to mature in this 
life of holiness, you will find that perfect submission to 
the will of God is the key to unlock the hid treasures 
revealed by Him. It is a life of perfect resignation 
which will make you master in the spiritual life, placing 
yourself in the hands of the Potter, that He may mould 
and dispose of you at His own pleasure, desiring nothing 

48 



A UFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

in the future but His will, not to live for yourself, neither 
to eat, drink, sleep, work, write, preach, testify, take, 
give, go, stay, or do anything for yourself but only for 
His glory. Delivering yourself up in such a manner that 
from that moment you never seek or covet anything 
religious or secular but God's will to be accomplished in 
you, so that in prosperity or adversity, consolation or 
affliction, in honor or dishonor, in evil report or good 
report, living or dying, you accept all as the sweet will 
of God; so that like David, you can say, "My heart is 
fixed." (Psalm 57: 7.) This life of perfect submission 
is one of joy; it becomes our delight to be temperate 
in all things, to govern our human appetites, to keep all 
subordinate to perfect love, such as eating, drinking, 
dressing, learning, loves, likes and dislikes, gifts; so that 
we do not boast of our superior qualifications above 
others who may be less qualified and gifted. This 
interior life of perfect submission tends to enlarge the 
heart and assists us to advance rapidly in the life of 
perfect love. It makes our sanctified life practical, not 
merely sentimental, not merely loving God and man with 
words only but with deeds. Here is where love is tried 
— a perfect love-life, in deeds — sacrifice is lost in love. 
You see the practical side to the Father's love in giving 
His son for a fallen world and the practical side of Jesus' 
love in the words, "Let us go hence, the hour is come, 

49 



"bread from heaven." 

for this cause came I to this hour." The life of perfect 
submission to the divine will is a life of joyful beatitude 
on earth. Love is a fountain, not a cistern, and we rob 
God when we carry our own cares. A life of perfect 
submission means, "No," to yourself. Oh, the profound 
peace and interior joy there is in this deep inner 
knowledge of God. In knowing that His kingdom, 
which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, 
is within us. The kingdom of heaven on earth. This 
is a paradise of delight. This is a continual life of bless- 
ing. It is the forerunner of the joy which the glorified 
in heaven enjoy. Here true contentment is found, for 
it is found in God. No disquiet, no discontent ; for the 
will is absolutely abandoned to God, and there is an 
inward, divine assurance, a sweet sense of heavenly rest; 
and sufferings and tribulations, griefs and sorrows, 
become the grapes from which can be pressed the sweet- 
ness and consolation and perfect calm which is found 
where no troubles ruffle you. Crosses and so-called mis- 
fortunes and affronts are mines from whence you dig 
to discover the wealth which is everlasting. You love 
the hand which has permitted them to come to you, and 
you prove in the strength and grace of God that there 
is not power enough in earth or hell to disturb the soul 
that lives in perfect submission to God. Temptations 
come from the Devil; the conflicts to undergo griefs and 

50 



A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

sorrows come; afflictions, contempts and sufferings are 
the portions of saints; those who are singularly favored 
by God by close intimate communion with Him, those 
who are the most beloved, are frequently the very ones 
who have to pass through the trials and hard sufferings 
so delicate and refined that it would not be wisdom to 
make them known to others; still, with it all, there is 
that interior peace and tranquillity of soul and abundance 
of joy in the heart as to make each day a day of jubilee 
and exultation, because there is perfect submission to 
His divine will. Your joy is having His will accom- 
plished. This is the source of content and satisfaction. 
Pains and temptations, prosperity, adversity, become 
matters of joy; this is a taste of the charm of the sweet- 
ness of glory. Torments, sorrows, anguishes may come, 
but all is a source of joy to the soul that lives in perfect 
submission. We enter in a full sense into the Apostle's 
writings to the church at Philippi. The peace of God 
which infinitely transcends all sense, preserves our hearts 
and souls in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 5 : 7.) This is super- 
natural, superhuman. The human reason and under- 
standing can never comprehend this. Amid the storms 
and tempests, temptations and sufferings, betrayals by 
false brethren, slighted, disowned by loved ones, your 
heart will remain silent and quiet under it all. There 
is joy in suffering, in humility of heart and in the 

51 



presence and filial fear of God. When surrounded by 
mobs, who will abuse and curse, yell and stone and 
threaten your life, with loaded affront and injuries, and 
who have committed other contumelious outrages; both 
informed by Protestant elders as well as Catholic priests 
that they will have no more to do with you, receiving 
the most hellish letters which only the arch-fiend in 
hell can inspire, you will learn that perfect love can 
bear it all without a murmur, without a complaint. 
Blessed peace! Heavenly habitation! Our content and 
repose is found in God, complete joy of which no one 
shall be able to dispossess the soul, because all the soul's 
joy is found in perfect submission to God. All our joy, 
happiness, confidence, is according to His pleasure. In 
all our actions, goings, stayings, afflictions or sufferings 
we have regard to nothing but His holy will. Eest and 
peace is truly found in the bosom of God. True con- 
tentment is found in Him alone, not merely in the means 
of grace but in grace itself. Here is perpetual peace 
and satisfaction. Here is where the anchor holds firm 
and unmovable. Content cannot and never has been 
found in anything else. Everything else is subject to 
decay, but here treasures everlasting are found. How 
foolish to place our heart on anything else that is to 
perish, upon things which never satisfy, never bring 
deep, solid rest! For when we set our heart on anything 

5» 



A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

which can be taken from us, it must necessarily bring 
a thousand disappointments, discontents and afflictions. 
The very apprehension of losing them brings uneasiness, 
disquiets us, and awakens inward sorrows and torments. 
It is with grief we are deprived of that to which our 
hearts are attached, and the closer the attachment, the 
more violent will be the grief. If you seek your con- 
tentment in yourself; if you seek it in your parents, 
home, money, father, mother, Conference, Synod, Pres- 
bytery; if you seek it in your brethren, in your friends 
or superiors or books or honors or promotions or in the 
view of others — these are things which you may be 
robbed of, and which often betray you. Bear in mind 
that there is no solid, real, true peace or comfort in any- 
thing but God. If you depend on objects or creatures or 
places; if you place it in the accomplishment of your 
temporal success, on the mere study of theology or in 
the letter of the Word or in mere ordinances; you will 
find that what will be pleasing to-day will be displeasing 
to-morrow; but if you are perfectly submitted to God 
and find your rest only in Him, it will last forever. 
Here there is no change. He is the same yesterday, and 
to-day and forever. Here is where we can overflow 
with joy in all our afflictions. He who admits of no 
change, can keep us unmovable in this blessed life of 
peace. If you find your content in the things of this 

53 



world, by the reason of their inconstancy and vicissitudes 
they will make you as themselves, their diversity will 
cause you to transport to-day with joy and to-morrow 
you will be oppressed with grief. In God you can 
always find yourself composed, always at peace, always 
satisfied, because you will find your joy in God. This 
is the secret of the joy that is found in the Lord. Oh, 
that you might enter into His joy now, and from this 
moment rejoice unceasingly in Him. This does not say 
to rejoice in the abundance of temporal goods, nor in the 
attaining of a great capacity of learning, nor in the 
enjoyment of perfect health, or of a great constitution 
or of a fine physique nor in being esteemed by others, 
but rejoice in the Lord. All your joy and hope and 
peace and content is in living in perfect submission to 
the divine will. "Behold, we have left all and followed 
Him." Nothing is the food of the soul but God. 



54 



A Life of Perfect Submission. 

Continued. 



CHAPTEE IY. 

a life of perfect submission. (Continued.) 

"I am the bread sent down from Heaven; eat and 
live forever." Air and wind, of themselves, can never 
satisfy the hunger of the body. You would be looked 
upon as insane, if upon the point of dying of hunger, 
you would, like a chameleon, open your mouth 'to 
breathe in the air, thinking thereby to gain new food 
and sustenance. Just so it is a peace of folly to imagine 
that a soul made for God can ever be satisfied with any- 
thing merely sensible or corporal. Other things may 
puff up, but nothing can ever satisfy and fill the soul 
but God Himself. He has made it possible for the soul 
to contain Himself. This is too much for reason, too 
much for the finite mind to grasp, but the divine revela- 
tion is made known to the soul who will become perfectly 
submissive to the divine will. Our chief end is to seek 
and find rest in God. Eiches fail, honors cease, highest 
degrees of dignity and preferment but live for a moment, 
but the soul that is perfectly submitted to the divine 
will finds the hidden treasure of love which never f aileth. 
All we ask the Father, which is in harmony with His will, 
in the name of Jesus, He gives. The holy soul never 
entertains the desire of doing His own will. Blessed 

57 



loyalty! Holy obedience! Christ-like life! The call to 
holiness is a call to die to our way; a call to the cruci- 
fixion of the inward corrupt nature ; a call to a heavenly 
resurrected life; a call to a life of inward cleansing, 
a life of perfect submission to His will. Here is where 
delight is found in the Lord. (Psalm 37.) Blessed life 
of cheerfulness! Here is the beauty of holiness, the 
getting of your eye single to His glory. What depth is 
in words of the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed." This 
keeps us from being puffed up in prosperity or of being 
dejected in adversity. Whether I am poor or rich, ill- 
thought of or well-thought of; whether it is foul or fair, 
sunshine or stormy; whether fortune or misfortune 
comes ; here I can always bless God in profound humility, 
knowing that I am always in the arms of my heavenly 
Father's providences. All that is not of God can never 
content me. But as soon as the soul finds God, it rejoices 
in perpetual comfort and tranquillity. The way to 
mature in the life of Christian perfection is to live in 
perfect submission to the will of God. Rendering good 
for evil, never murmuring interiorly or exteriorly in any 
injury or suffering from others, receiving new vigor and 
comfort from God, and always being ready to suffer 
more from Him. The moment we put our all in His 
hands, He puts all in ours. "All things are yours." 
Nothing can happen to us but what is for His glory. 

58 



A UFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

Many times we will have to tell our friends to put up the 
sword and ask the question, "Will you not let me drink 
the chalice my Father has given me? Some may plan your 
downfall, and declare you too independent, but you will 
pass through the midst of it all unhurt. Doubtless, like 
your Lord, they will tie your hands of usefulness, and 
endeavor to destroy your influence, but God will see you 
through. There will be a way of escape ; He will deliver 
you from the net, there will be art and stratagem con- 
nived against you, but neither devils nor men can harm 
you. Rich treasure to have confidence in the providence 
of God! "Lord, Thou crown eth me with loving kind- 
ness." (Psalm 103 : 4.) "In the secret of His tabernacle 
shall He hide me." (Psalm 27: 5.) He hides us under 
His wings, in the secret of His presence He preserves us. 
We are more precious to Him than the apple of the eye. 
He who touches us, touches the apple of His eye. How 
precious and tender this protection is! He who is the 
absolute Lord of Heaven and earth is our Father, and 
His love toward us infinitely exceeds the love of any 
earthly parent. So that the soul can rest satisfied, know- 
ing that whatever the Father ordains is for our greatest 
advancement and our eternal good. In giving us Jesus, 
He has given us all. For, of God, He is made unto us 
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption. Christ is all and in all. When father and 

59 



mother forsake you, then the Lord will take you up ; He 
will receive you and care for you, and see that all your 
needs are supplied according to His riches in glory in 
Jesus Christ. He who contains the wealth of glory 
comes to abide in your heart. He ever cares for His 
own. What an expression of tenderness this brings to 
our hearts! No child reposes so sweetly in the arms of 
the tender mother than we may in His arms. No mother 
ever loved her children with more maternal affection 
than Jesus loves us. A mother may so forget her child 
as to have no pity or commiseration for him, yet when 
she forgets you, He never will. Filial confidence in God 
produces a peace and tranquillity such as Isaiah speaks 
of, "My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and 
in a quiet resting place. The work of righteousness shall 
be peace, the effect of righteousness, quietness and 
assurance forever." (Isa. 32: 17, 18.) Peace of the 
soul is the effect of perfect confidence, and when the 
soul confides in God she fears nothing nor troubles her- 
self about what occurs, since she knows that God is her 
protection as long as she is living the life of perfect trust 
Our repose is in Him. He confirms our hope. He 
replenishes the soul with joy. "The God of all hope," 
says the Apostle, "fill you with all joy and peace in 
believing, that ye may abound in hope through the 
power of the Holy Ghost." (Romans 15: 16.) Here is 

6o 



A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

where we get the fullness of knowledge and the inspira- 
tion of hope with which to inspire others. We become 
trees planted by the river of water. (Psalm 1: 3.) 
Nothing can touch the heart. We cannot be dejected 
by the misfortunes of life, as long as our souls are 
perfectly submitted to our Heavenly Father's will, and 
we are persuaded that nothing can occur from Him, in 
whose tenderness and affection we confide. Our Father 
knows what is good for us. The soul that confides in 
Him does not dictate or doubt or murmur, because he is 
assured that all will turn to his profit here and hereafter. 
This animates the soul into a flame of holy love and 
perfect trust in God. This is what gives such interior 
peace and confidence and stability in all sorts of trials, 
bufferings and sufferings. You will respect all, but you 
will not be afraid of men or demons, death or judgment, 
knowing that nothing can happen to you that can do 
you harm. Demons both incarnate and excarnate will 
attack you with all the fierceness of their satanic nature, 
they will surround you on all sides, but they are only 
creatures and can do the soul no harm who perfectly 
trusts God and lives in perfect submission to the divine 
will. Neither temptations nor trials nor crosses nor even 
our faults or infirmities will diminish in the least our 
confidence in God. True love consists in nothing more 
and in nothing less than an entire renunciation of self 

61 



and an absolute submissiveness to God in all things. As 
you develop in this life, you will see so much in these 
words as will occupy your lifetime. "Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven." (Luke 12: 42.) It is most 
blessed to live this life when in difficult circumstances or 
in times of adversity, for such are more repugnant to our 
human nature. I do not mean here carnal nature, for 
these are the occasions when our solidity is tested and 
the foundation upon which we have built is proven. 
It is then that the love and loyalty we bear God is shown 
in a particular sense. As the affection of a king is shown 
in times of peace by the gifts and recompenses he bestows 
upon them, and as the zeal and love, loyalty and 
patriotism of soldiers are demonstrated in time of war by 
fighting and sacrificing their lives for their country, so 
the love and tenderness of Jesus, our King, is more 
apparent to us in times of consolation and in the excess 
of love He manifests to us, and so our love and loyalty 
and devotion are chiefly evidenced in times of aridities 
and tribulations. This holy life of perfect submission 
aids you to shed forth more light in the night of sorrow 
than in the day of joy and delights. What a joy to find 
God's will carried out in us in times of suffering and 
injuries! so that we would rather die than forfeit our 
God-given convictions, or wilfully and conscientiously 
commit a sin to avoid them, and that we would 

62 



A LIFE OF PERFECT SUBMISSION. 

readily die before surrendering. Blessed, blessed 
to have your heart fixed, so that, like the Apostle 
Paul before the Jews, you rejoice in suffering. 
Bitters become sweet when we know they are per- 
mitted to come by our Father. We shut ourselves up 
to His will. My beloved to me and I to Him. What 
a mine of spiritual wealth in these words. This perfect 
submission to the devine will gives us the spirit of broad 
catholicity. We cannot confine ourselves to a mere 
denomination or to one part of the world or to one class 
of people, but the chief end of our submission is to be 
prepared to preach anywhere, go anywhere, suffer any- 
where, though we may have to oppose the will of our 
friends or our enemies. We are delivered from Jews 
as well as from Gentiles, from friends as well as from 
foes; so that, after prayer, divine impressions, the Word 
of God, our best common sense exercised, the advice of 
unselfish and heroic and holy men agreeing, we will be 
ready to do anything, go anywhere, without repugnance 
or murmuring. This perfect submission does not make 
us lawless to all good government, but we love "the 
perfect law of liberty" and it enables us to stand for our 
convictions or die. There is a holy indifference as to 
where I may be, as long as I am confident I am in perfect 
submission to the will of God. We retain no attachment 
to anything or to any place or to any person that would 

63 



stand in our way of doing God's will. And our per- 
petual prayer is, "Dear Jesus, have Thy way and will 
in us." So we give up all curiosity as to what God is 
going to do with us. In this life of Christ-like submission 
we are content with the native ability and acquired 
ability God may give us. Also, with His gifts to us, 
without envying others who may be endowed with and 
in possession of superior ability. This is a great lesson, 
and will be evidence to us that this secret sort of unholy 
envy and jealousy is destroyed. Many leave off their 
studies and enter into discontent and inward dejection 
on account of discouragement, which comes from interior 
envy and jealousy. We will do our best in our studies, 
then rest in God. My destiny, oh Lord, is in Thy hand. 
We are no longer ambitious for posts of honor or place, 
but willing to be a bishop or a beadle. We have no 
selfish interest. All is for the glory of God. What 
lessons of profound humility are taught in His college! 
He calms us in Himself when foes rise up against us. 
We can rest quietly in His infallible, unchangeable 
Word, without being disturbed, our eyes fixed by faith 
in Jesus, our souls are anchored, our hearts are fixed. 



64 



The Secret of His Presence. 






CHAPTER V. 

THE SECRET OF HIS TRESENCE. 

The soul that has entered the land of Beulah, no 
matter where he may be, or how multiplied his duties 
are, or what occupation he may be engaged in, finds him- 
self always living in the Divine Presence. The Lord, 
whom he has found, becomes his strength and His face 
he seeks evermore. He remembers His marvelous works 
that He has done, His wonders and the judgments of His 
mouth. (Psalm 105: 4, 5.) 

He beholds the face of his loving Lord. Jesus not 
only becomes his companion, but his abiding guest. This 
is a foretaste of the felicity of the blessed in heaven, 
who there behold Him face to face. True, during this 
short probation we do not behold Him as the triumphant 
do in heaven, but nevertheless, by the eye of faith we 
get glimpses of Him, we feel His touch, our hearts melt 
in the secret of His presence, and interiorly we bow down 
in loving adoration. "He. who hath commanded the 
light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, 
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Christ Jesus." (2 Cor. 4: 6.) 

With open face we behold as in a glass the glory of 

67 



the Lord and are changed into the same image from 
glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 

We view God in all of our actions, we have him con- 
tinually before our eyes. He becomes our bread, our 
meat, our drink, our nourishment, our joy, our hope, 
our peace, our life, our all in all. Blessed food! Holy 
entertainment! Heavenly banquet! "We are lost in 
wonder, in beholding God in the face of Jesus. Always 
loving Him. Holy mystery! yet this is the privilege of 
His blood-bought, soul-cleansed, spirit-filled, divinely 
anointed saints here in this world, who have entered the 
land of perfect love. 

We set the Lord always before us. We shall not be 
moved because Pie is as our right hand. He is the portion 
of our inheritance. Our lines have fallen in pleasant 
places. We have a goodly heritage. We bless Him who 
gives us counsel. How familiar the holy soul is that is 
faithful with God, who lives by faith momentarily in the 
secret of His presence. Blessed, inwrought, imparted, 
divinely inspired life! Anywhere and everywhere is 
home to him who has found his home in God. There is 
melody in such a heart. Here God reveals the word of 
His love and the excellency of His knowledge, giving 
the soul a holy liberty, still bringing it into a holy bond- 
age. Like the child who sees the eyes of the tender 
loving mother and would not out of love do anything 

68 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

that would wound the heart of maternal affection, so the 
soul which lives in the secret presence is careful in all 
his actions that he may not wound the heart of Him he 
so tenderly loves. The soul lives in loyalty and devote- 
ment because herein it finds its delight, its joy its 
support, its strength, its heaven. Temptations come but 
they lose their power. The assaults of the enemy are 
vain when we are assured that He, the mighty conqueror 
over hell, and earth, is dwelling within. 

His almightiness is greater than all the mighty forces 
that may be against us. How sad to think that some 
who once enjoyed His gracious presence have lost it 
because they were not on their guard. How sad to 
forget Him, to turn our backs on Him, to permit the 
enemy to get us into such a state where the sweets of 
heaven's bliss do not come to the soul! How he would 
have aided you to be an overcomer, if you had but 
cultivated the spirit of living in His presence. Temp- 
tations assailed you, trials and difficulties came upon you 
like a flood, you tried to resist them in your own strength, 
but you have proved that without Him you were but 
an infinity of weakness. You lost the presence of the 
abiding Comforter. Your faith wavered. Like the 
disciples in the ship when the storms came and the winds 
blew, you forgot that Jesus was on board. 

Down you went! You sank and how sad, sad was the 

69 



wreckage! Mark my words, the cultivation of the 
presence of God is a wonderful aid to the grace of per- 
severance. It is a blessed help to develop us in the 
sanctified life, to overcome the likes and dislikes and 
repugnances of our human nature. 

See how necessary it is for the moon to keep her face 
always toward the sun, she depends upon the sun, her 
light varies as her position with the sun varies, she acts 
not upon the sublunary bodies but according to the light 
communicated to her by the sun; so this action increases 
or diminishes, and as soon as anything interposes between 
the sun and moon, the moon presently loses her light 
and force. The same thing will happen between the soul 
who does not walk in the secret of God. I humbly 
recommend to you the necessity of getting into the secret 
of His presence, so that every moment you may enjoy 
the effects of God's goodness, for there may not be a 
moment conscious or unconscious in our lives but we 
may enjoy His presence. 

In our regenerated life we try to live in His presence 
continually, but after we entered the Land of Canaan, 
we find ourselves without any effort believing and living 
under the eye of His paternal care all the time. He 
reveals to us the path of life in His presence. (Psalm 
16: 11.) 

Being upright we live there. (Psalm 140: 13.) The 

70 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

mountains of difficulty flow down at His presence, He 
hides us. (Psalm 31: 20.) From His presence comes 
refreshing. (Acts 3: 19.) Here flesh does not glory. 
(1 Cor. 1: 29.) Whatever our circumstances may be, 
wherever our lot may be cast, no matter how active our 
life may be, after we have made a complete abandonment 
to God we may walk before the presence of the Lord all 
the days of our life. In the beauty of holiness, like that 
of Abraham, we can walk before God every day, every 
moment and be perfect. 

This is our exalted privilege. If we desire to presevere 
in this life of perfect love, we will have God before our 
eyes at all times. The more we cultivate this habit of 
living in the secret of His presence, the more spiritual, 
heavenly and blessed we will become. As the stars 
derive their lustre and virtue from the sun, so we also, 
as stars in His kingdom, derive from His presence the 
lustre and virtue and heat which is derived from Him, 
the Sun of righteousness, the God of holiness. As Enoch 
walked with God, so may you and I. So that all we do 
or say is for His glory. Our very silence will honor Him, 
the Author and Finisher of our faith. The reflection of 
His countenance will shine upon us. Constantly living 
in the secret of His presence, we shall live in His atmos- 
phere, so that every thought will be brought into 
captivity to His. This consists in two acts. The one 

7i 



of understanding; the other of will. That of under- 
standing must precede the will, as being always required 
and pre-supposed for the producing of an act of the will. 
ISfow, this act is made by considering, not only that God 
is everywhere present, that He fills and replenishes the 
universe, but that He is, also, now dwelling in us and 
that we are His home, His temple, His abode and that 
He has come and does here and now dwell in us. That 
He has become our all and in all. This a blessed life 
of real living simple, pure faith, and we have the 
substance of things not seen and the evidence of things 
hoped for. He is within us. He has come to dwell, to 
abide, to teach, to guide, not for a day, a week, or a year, 
but forever. Our being, our life, our actions are in Him. 
We have given up seeking Him from without and now 
we find Him from within. The "very God" has become 
really present within us. We partake of His life, His 
energy. This is superhuman. He is the motion of all 
our spiritual being. He becomes our perpetual food. 
As we live in loyal obedience to Him, He enlarges our 
capacity, gives us new strength, new power, new energy, 
new life, new joys, new revelations. We become more 
solid. He establishes our goings. He overwhelms us 
with new surprises. His abounding at times baffles us. 
We become filled with His glory. The sin which blinded 
our eyes is eliminated. At His presence shame is gone 

72 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

and we are filled with wonder at the revelation of His 
presence to our hearts. What an infinite ocean of Divine 
immensity. We in God, God in us. What a depth, 
breadth! Oh, it is fathomless, boundless! No bounds 
in God. His Word is not bound. We become permeated 
through and through with His presence. He loves to 
make His home wherever He can find a character like 
His own. How intimate, how familiar Jesus becomes 
to the entirely sanctified! He becomes our superintend- 
ent to supervise all our actions, to lovingly but not 
harshly reprove us when we make mistakes, and to 
commend us when we do our best. He becomes our 
Rock, the foundation of which is everlasting; our shield 
to protect us from the attacks of the evil one; our helmet 
to keep our heads cool and level, so that we will not be 
led astray by every wind of doctrine. He gives us the 
the whole armor of God. He girds our loins with His 
truth to defend us from error. He arms us with "the 
sword of the spirit" to fight our battles. 

He always goes before us, so that we need not be 
defeated but have perpetual triumph in every place. 
We travel with Him to Bethlehem. We enter into the 
secrets of His private life. We journey with Him 
through His public ministry. We stand on the very 
ground where He worked His stupendous miracles, the 
records of which can never be effaced. We see Him at 

73 



' BREAD FROM HKAVEN. 

the last supper, in Gethsemane's garden, on Golgotha's 
cross, bursting the tomb, ascending into heaven. We see 
Him come in the mighty Pentecost. But best of all we 
know Him in our own hearts. "We feel His presence. 
We have entered into the cleft of the Kock. Truly it 
is a hidden life, hid with Christ in God. Blessed refuge! 
He not only gives us light, but He, Himself, has 
become our light, our salvation. We can trust Him 
where we cannot sec, feel or trace, and not be afraid. He 
has become our strength. The Lord is my strength. 
We drink with joy living waters out of the wells of His 
salvation. The heart becomes fired. There is a sweet 
delight, a heavenly contentment under the most adverse, 
disheartening, discouraging, and seemingly damaging 
circumstances. This truly is the science of holy men, 
to live in the secret of His presence. This is the secret 
of God, to be taught of God, to love God, to have His 
Spirit of revelation and knowledge and wisdom. To 
know the hope of our calling, to have the eyes of our 
moral nature opened, to behold the King in His beauty. 
This is no fiction. This is a life enjoyed and lived. We 
know Him and the power of His resurrection and the 
fellowship of His sufferings. It is the inward manifes- 
tation of the real knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. 
I got tired of fiction and imagination and speculative 
meditations, but this is the life of God, the real witness 

74 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

which we can have in onr hearts, the fullness of His 
Spirit. It is God's fullness. This is the tenderest, 
sweetest, most delightful experience this side of heaven. 
It is a foretaste of the heavenly. It is a life of simplic- 
ity, of simple faith, the medium through which this 
knowledge comes. We. see Him who is invisible. The 
Holy Spirit is present with us. We enjoy His fruits, 
which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. At times we 
yearn to behold Him face to face, because we know that 
when Ave shall see Him, we shall be like Him, for w T e 
shall see Him as He is. The will, which is the king of 
the man, is abandoned to God. There is found no 
difficulty in elevating the heart to Him, and as we walk 
in the Spirit we feel His touch which retires the gift 
within us, inflames the heart and brings us into a raptur- 
ous love and holy unity. 

We are in sympathy with Him over a lost world and 
the thousands which are rejecting Him in the churches. 
We weep many times over the sad apostacy of millions 
of souls. Still we love the church which Christ died to 
sanctify. We find ourselves in the tenderest affections 
with our brethren. We are sorrowful, yet always rejoic- 
ing. There is ofttimes a soul-longing to depart and to 
be with Jesus, the object of our love. There are the 
inwrought inspirations which raise us over everything 

75 



and everybody into God, and this is seemingly made 
without any effort. For as the action of continually 
repelling from our lungs the air we draw into them is 
made without previous reflection or resolution to respire 
or to draw breath, so these burning desires, holy tender- 
nesses and heavenly meltings of the spiritual nature 
proceed so suddenly, a holy abounding, without having 
beforehand so much time to think on them. Heavenly 
ocean swellings and heavenly breezes waft across our 
souls bursting out into ejaculations of praise, deep in the 
hallowed silence. Suddenly they are shot forth. The 
heart spontaneously shoots out before God. What fresh- 
ness, what regirding, what holy anointing comes at such 
seasons ! What fervor that is not immoderate when God 
comes in His gracious visitations to our souls! Our 
hearts become hot within us as He communes with us 
by the way. Blessed abiding! Sublime knowledge! 
which never can be gained in commentaries or in the 
study of profane works, but which only can be taught 
us in the secret life hid with Christ in God. In the most 
trying occasions He inclines His ear and bows down to 
listen to us. What haste He makes to become our help. 
We are confident of our insuffiency, but we know that 
whatsoever combats or assaults the enemy may make 
upon us, we always become more than conquerors, know- 
ing that He is our impenetrable buckler, He is our 

76 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE- 

coat-of-mail, an assured rampart of defense, and our 
sufficiency is of Him. 

The sanctified soul, being now purged, becomes illumi- 
native and united to God Himself. Here there is a 
profound humility, a loving loyal obedience, a firm and 
unshaken patience, a holy non-resistance to the will and 
purposes of God, in whatever may come by His per- 
missive providences, so that we can say, "My Beloved is 
mine and I am all His." Not my will but Thy will be 
done in me. There is nothing in heaven beside Thee, 
and nothing on earth do I desire in comparison to Thee. 

The enjoyment of God is all my desire, so that whether 
we eat or drink, suffer, work, preach, pray, testify, it is 
all for His glory. It is for Jesus I do this. I go there, 
I remain there, I speak, I dare, I praise, I conquer, I am 
still. Blessed life of submission. Under the most 
intense and refined suffering, like Jesus, who was a 
mystery to those who have not found the secret of God. 

We look for nothing, seek for nothing, only what will 
satisfy Jesus. "We have all that pleases and satisfies 
our hearts when we have Him. He is our glory and 
we are His. All we have is His, all He is, is ours, for 
hath not He said, "All things are yours and you are 
Christ's and Christ is God's. 

We confirm ourselves entirely to His will and all our 
joy and contentment is in God. We are fellow-citizens 

77 



with the saints. This world has lost its charm for us. 
We comprehend with all saints; we seek those things 
which are above ; our conversation is in heaven ; we look 
not to the visible but to the invisible, not to the temporal 
but to the eternal. He the guest, the joy, the charm of 
heaven has come into our hearts and satisfies the longing 
of our souls. He is never absent, feeling or no feeling, 
conscious or unconscious. He is always dwelling in the 
sanctified heart. 

What lessons we learn in the secret of His presence. 
We avoid speaking anything that will tend to our own 
praise. We will be humble before God, when we are 
praised by others, or when spoken well of. We will 
make it an opportunity of abasing ourselves before His 
presence. We rejoice in hearing others well spoken of 
and love to see others preferred to places of honor 
before us. We do and say nothing for mere human 
respect, to attract the eyes or esteem of men, but we 
do and say all with pure motive to please God. We seek 
the honor which cometh from God only. We do not 
excuse our mistakes or faults unnecessarily. We do not 
blame them on others interiorly or exteriorly. We do 
not entertain any thoughts of vain glory occasioned by 
whatever brings reputation and esteem or promotion 
before our brethren. We prefer all the world before 
ourselves. Behaving with all our brethern as if they 

78 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

were our superiors. We receive from the Providential 
hand of our Heavenly Father all that may come to us, 
bearing our crosses, suffering our cares, accepting them 
promptly and embracing them with joy, considering it 
a privilege to have fellowship with His sufferings. "We 
rejoice with exceeding great joy when we suffer affronts 
and contempts for righteousness' sake after the example 
of Him, who became the reproach of men and the outcast 
of His people. We learn to love our brother as a second 
self, never speaking unkindly of him, never doing him 
any prejudice or treating him with the least coolness, 
much less contempt, either in his presence or in his 
absence. We never tell a third person what has been said 
about him, avoiding as far as lie within us anything that 
may cause our brother unnecessary pain or grief. We 
commend his good qualities. We avoid sowing any discord 
among the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter 
what denomination they belong to. We keep our mouth 
with a bridle when the wicked are present. (Psalm 39 :1.) 
Never do anything wilfully to mortify our brother. 
Not obstinate in our opinion. Still loyalty to death for 
a God-given conviction. Never disputing nor contend- 
ing in heat. Avoiding bossism over one whom we may 
have authority. In the spirit of love, we treat all as we 
would treat Jesus, for that which we do unto one of. the 
least of these our brethren, we do it unto Him. We learn 

79 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

to love, to serve others we do all that lieth in our power 
to make them happy. Love constrains us. We harbor 
no feelings against one another; not even is there the 
least sign manifest in our looks or in our demeanor. 
Never abstaining from speaking to him or neglecting to 
succor him in his necessities, or in any way appearing 
that we are not satisfied with him. We love all, and 
still abstain from familiarities or particular friendships 
which are opposite to the spirit of perfect love. We 
never form judgments according to our prejudices, and 
even when we cannot close our eyes against certain 
faults we are merciful, bearing one another's burdens 
and so fulfilling the law of Christ. 

We love self-denials, whether they come from 
superiors, inferiors or equals. We receive them well 
and make the most profit out of them, in order to deepen 
us in spiritual life. We learn that holiness is not a 
finality. We live not for ourselves. We never exceed 
the rules of temperance in eating or drinking. We learn 
the lesson of Christ-like meekness and forbearance under 
the greatest wrongs that may be conspired against us. 
We have a blessed interior tranquillity, so there is noth- 
ing can enter, so that there is nothing that can ruffle that 
perfect peace which God has given us. We belong to 
God. Such is the life we enjoy in the secret of His 
presence. 

80 



THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE. 

In the secret of His presence we learn when unkind 
criticisms are passed upon us, our motives judged unkind 
and sometimes most un-Christian letters come from 
superiors, who under the guise of ecclesiastical authority, 
when they try to rush us and drive or drag us to do this, 
that or the other to gain their selfish aims and unholy 
ends, we lovingly keep silent, and answer not a word, 
and in a most Christian-like manner, and when all efforts 
seem to fail of trying to make them understand us, we 
keep silence and suffer the sweet will of God. "We know 
that what is not of God is but rubbish. Our trust is 
not in our feelings but in Him. Christ is all in all. In 
His presence all things yield delight. "We dwell in Him 
richly, in all wisdom. 



8z 



Holy Quietness. 






CHAPTER VI. 

HOLY QUIETNESS. 

It is not my intention in this chapter to undervalue 
the importance of witnessing for Jesus, because I am 
well aware that every truly sanctified soul receives a 
tongue of fire, in order to become a blazing witness to 
declare what God has done for him in his soul, and I am 
confident that one of the greatest needs of to-day is a 
witnessing church; but, at the same time, years of expe- 
rience have taught me that witnessing will have but little 
effect unless it comes from a heart that walks quietly 
before God. 

Perhaps you say to me, "Don't you value demonstra- 
tion and heavenly noise in church?" Certainly, by all 
means. We cannot have enough of it when they are 
sounds that come from heaven. But you and I have 
found out that one-third which we have heard has been 
from the devil, one-third of self, and one-third from God. 
Advancing in the blessed life of perfect love the Holy 
Spirit will teach us the necessity of holy quietness before 
God. We will become more moderate in our conversa- 
tion, knowing that one of the greatest hindrances to a 
life of development in vital godliness, is immoderation 
or intemperance in our conversation. 

I believe it would pay us all to speak less. "If there 

85 



be any that offend not in tongue, the same is a perfect 
man." If we think that we are religious and bridle not 
our tongues, but permit ourselves on all occasions to dis- 
cover our thoughts, our religion is vain and unprofitable. 
What lessons of wisdom, words and work we might learn 
from Pastor James. If we will listen to the still small 
voice and be obedient to the Holy Spirit, he will teach us 
that one of the ways of spiritual advancement is sanc- 
tified life, is to have a quiet waiting before God, a passing 
into God. 

Perhaps there is no way that beginners in the sancti- 
fied life can become more knowing and progress more 
rapidly than in cultivating a spirit of holy quietness 
before God. I do not say that we become masters of 
this in a moment, but I humbly say that, as professors 
of perfect love, we may advance in the ways of God, 
much more rapidly, if we shall "study to be quiet." If 
we are to speak as the oracles of God, we must, of 
necessity, learn to be quiet, to wait on God. We must 
forget all the language the world has taught us, enter 
into the college of our own hearts and listen silently to 
the heavenly school Teacher from whom we learn the 
Christ-like deliberation, a liberty that is not lawless, a 
holy sweetness, where we gain an almightiness in our 
words and that holy seriousness which will enable us to 
deliver our messages with divine authority. Holy quiet- 

86 



HOLY QUIETNESS. 

ness before God is the greatest preparation for public 
speaking. It gives the soul leisure to accomplish itself, 
so that when we speak, we will not speak at random, with 
a fiery, fleshly intensity but intelligently, knowing that 
it is God that is going to speak through us. This 
will give us a Christ-like ease in our delivery, which 
mingles in our discourse, the salt or savor of that divine 
love so much exemplified by John and beautifully taught 
us by the Apostle Paul. 

Our conversation will become even, not unnecessarily 
boisterous, because He, the meek and lowly Jesus, whose 
spirit abides wdthin, has not been slighted or grieved. 
It takes all the briskness and domineering sound out of 
our voice. We will learn to be obliging to our brethren. 
We will not look upon one another with suspicion, but 
with confidence and joy. Jesus will teach us not to give 
unnecessary offence to our brethren, even under provoca- 
tion. We have respect for each others feelings. Harsh- 
ness of language, scolding and sharp replies forever cease 
and the domineering manner in our preaching. In this 
holy quietness we get an opportunity to learn and un- 
learn. We delight ourselves in the abundance of His 
peace. All our desires are before Him and we enter into 
holy calmness, restfulness and freshness before God. If 
there were not times of silence in our schools of learning, 
if it were all noise and clatter, leaping and jumping and 

87 



1 ' BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' ' 

shouting, students would make very little progress in 
their studies. If students are to become able men and 
be qualified to teach others in the future they must learn 
to be quiet, and listen and take in the knowledge which 
their professors are endeavoring to impart. In like 
manner it is not possible that we ever can be masters or 
teachers in the divine life, unless we learn the secret of 
holy quietness before God. This can be done in the 
busiest actions, in the most arduous work. What oppor- 
tunities of grace, what blessed revelations of heavenly 
knowledge we lose by not having more interior recollec- 
tion. How far advanced we might be in the school of 
Christ, how many of us might, by this time have 
graduated in many virtues, who seemingly have made 
little or no advancement in this life of perfect love! 
Or perhaps we have lost grace altogether, while still 
holding on to the profession of this holy and exalted state 
of grace. Beloved, be assured that a great means of 
advancement in the life of holiness is to speak less. How 
many we have met who are still novices in the spiritual 
life because they do not cultivate this blessed life of 
interior recollection or quietness before God. 

If ever we will be much help to others we must enter 
the school; for the true art of speaking with power in 
order to win and woo and help others, is to speak less 

with man and more with God. 

88 



HOI.Y QUIETNESS. 

This interior life with God is the mother of all true 
heaven-inspired, heaven-honored sermons, prayers and 
testimonies. If we desire to learn the art of prayer, the 
secret of power for sermons which may be inwrought by 
the Holy Spirit in order to have divine inspiration and 
His will made known to us through His Word, we must 
enter into holy familiarity with Jesus, become his bosom 
friend and listen to what He has to say to us. 

"We always draw aside from other company to tell our 
friends what we do not want others to know. There is 
nothing better than this life of recollection in order to 
deepen, broaden and develop us in the things of God. 
Useless talk, I do not mean to say social, sanctified and 
pleasant converse with one another, but useless and idle 
talk hinders us from direct communication with God. 
In this triumphant life, we learn to know more and more 
that we are His and He is ours. We can frequently say 
to Him, "Thou art my God, and I belong to Thee." 
We are betrothed to Him in righteousness, judgment, 
loving kindness, tender mercies and faithfulness, and we 
know our Lord. The secret of His dwelling is our dwell- 
ing place, under His shadow we abide, He becomes our 
fortress, our high tower and, so to speak, in the secret 
of life we can run upstairs, look out of the windows of 
this tower and get a glimpse of the heavenlies. 

Here we flourish like the palm tree, grow like the 

89 



"bread £&6M heaven." 

cedar in Lebanon, become planted in the house of our 
God, flourish in His courts, and as years pass by 
we ripen in the divine life, until we are ready to be 
received by him into His everlasting abode. He leads 
us in holy solitude. Ah, how true it is He requires a 
closet in our hearts! The King's daughter is all glorious 
within, her clothing is wrought of gold. What rejoicing 
and inward abounding there is in this life of heavenly 
quietness! We prove that He is fairer than the children 
of men. "Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore had 
God blessed thee forever." We find out that He is the 
Lily of the Vally, the Rose of Sharon, the Bright and 
Morning Star. In Him the soul finds her boast all the 
day long. Out of the Zion of the heart his perfection 
and beauty shines. To enjoy this life it is not necessary 
by any means to be a hermit and seclude yourself from 
your fellow man inside the walls of some monastery, 
but right in the midst of this wicked world we can enjoy 
and soar up in this blessed life, hid with Christ in God. 
We need not quit our several vocations in life in which 
divine Providence has placed us. We can be in the 
world but not of it. We can live like a lily in a dung 
hill. If we would be spiritual, if we could have more 
messages from heaven, if we would understand the Word 
in order to explain and expound it to others, we must be 
more alone with God in the secret closet of our own 

90 



HOLY QUIETNESS. 

hearts. We must learn the lesson of recollection. You 
will often notice that by opening the door of a hot bath- 
room the heat is inhaled; so by frequent and unprof- 
itable openings of the mouth in idle and useless con- 
versation we emit the fervor of devotion, often divide 
the heart between many objects and are liable to rob 
ourselves of the spiritual power we so much need. It is 
astonishing how soon the heat, warmth and devotion will 
leave the soul of those who grieve the Spirit in useless 
and idle conversation. 

In this life of blessed quietness we soon find out our 
ignorance, our infancy in spiritual knowledge and wo 
will not be surprised at Paul the double-graduate saying, 
"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Job had 
truly found the secret when Eliphaz asked him the 
question, "Hast thou found the secret of God?" Blessed 
life! Blessed freedom! Blessed secret! 

This life is not a life of fancy. It is not a mere 
imaginary life. It is a life which may be enjoyed in the 
most busy scenes. Traveling thousands of miles, preach- 
ing twice a day, three times on Sundays, writing for 
periodicals, answering correspondence, looking after our 
family cares, visiting hundreds of homes every day, meet- 
ing a thousand and one things that men in every-day 
life have to meet, still we can find in the midst of it all, 

91 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

a deep, solid, inner, heart-to-heart communion. The 
secret of it all is, bid farewell to all useless, idle and 
unprofitable conversation and you will find sufficient 
time for this holy and delightful interview with Jesus. 

A great noise will hinder us from hearing distinctly. 
So much talk will hinder us from hearing the gentle 
sweet voice of the Holy Spirit. When a man leaves his 
safe open, it is a sign that there is not much value in it; 
so when we have not a gate of prudence before our lips, 
is it not an evidence that there is not much depth of 
spiritual life there? 

Oh, the love of God, it surpasses knowledge ! Christ, 
truly, is love personified, chanted in Paul's song of love, 
crystallized by John in such expressions as, "God is 
Love." Here there is no fear, no punishment, but rest, 
calm, holy stillness in God. It is the bond whereby the 
hearts of men and God are bound alike. When we get 
into divine touch and with Jesus, we very soon see our 
babyhood; we see our utter nothingness and in humility 
of heart we prostrate ourselves before him in holy adora- 
tion. To Him who has become the life, joy and peace of 
our souls as we give ourselves to this interior life, we 
become deaf and dumb upon many things which used 
to gain our admiration and occupy our time. 

What uncontainable joys are found in the deepest 
Bufferings as we become tongue-tied in many things 

92 



HOLY QUIETNESS. 

which, used to gain our attention. Yon cannot be a 
talkative person and make very rapid progress in this life 
of holiness. Man's heart is made for pleasure and can 
only be satisfied when it finds its joy and contentment 
in God. Outside of this knowledge, true and lasting 
pleasure is never found. How much there is contained 
in the words, "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" 
Fifteen minutes spent daily by all the ministers of the 
gospel in holy, honest, sincere open-hearted communion 
with God for one year would be the means of transform- 
ing the church and would cause such a Pentecostal 
revival as, perhaps, has never been witnessed since the 
days of the apostles. 

Oh, that we might get down before God and in holy 
converse with Him, find out what we truly are and how 
little we do know! 

"What a transformation would take place in all our 
irregularities, what an end there would be to all our 
complaints, how idle and gossiping stories, destraction 
and slander would cease and those petty non-essentials 
which separate God's children from one another would 
be soon done away with. What an amount of idle time 
would be turned into use which is now spent in useless 
talk, if we would live more in the atmosphere of holy 
communion with God. How little time would be spent 
in lightness and frivolity and foolish talking, when we 

93 



"bread from heaven." 

would realize that we are God's mouthpiece to convey 
the message of light and love and deliverance to others. 
Conferences and synods and assemblies and revivals and 
camp-meetings where holy men give themselves to more 
recollection and less talk, is a place which breathes a holy 
sanctity. God is in such a place. It is the house of God, 
the gate of heaven to the saints. Fear, trembling and 
weight of conviction seizes the sinner. There is no one 
who will enter the school of Christ and who will spend 
some time alone with God but will be certain to advance 
in this life of perfect love. 

He who guards his mouth defends his soul. If we 
desire to glorify God, to be a power in the saving of souls, 
and desire to enter into the depths of divine knowledge 
and to make headway in the science of the saints, wc 
will learn to be quiet before God. How many are 
strangers to what they might know if they would only 
learn the lesson to become "a quietest!" I have never 
known a great talker to be given to much prayer, and 
to be very spiritual. And I cannot see, since they don't 
advance, how they can hold their own. It is my opinion 
they must retrograde. An open vessel which has no 
covering and is always exposed to dirt and filth must be 
unclean, so a professor of perfect love, who indulges in 
useless and trifling conversation, cannot avoid but permit 
the filth of sin to enter. 

94 



HOLY QUIETNESS. 

"He that knows no rule over his own spirit is like a 
city that is broken down and without a wall." (Pro v. 
25: 28.) 

Where there is much talk, sin will not be long in 
entering. Many who commence all right in their con- 
versation, by not keeping in the spirit, degenerate into 
idle and sometimes sharp and unholy criticism. The 
enemy easily gains the victory over the soul who does 
not learn the lesson of waiting before God. As a city 
without a wall is continually exposed to the enemies and 
is in great danger of being plundered, so sanctified souls, 
who do not cultivate the habit of waiting before God, 
lay themselves open to the attacks of the devil and are 
in great danger of surrendering. It is easy to surprise 
a careless soul, but the enemy has a difficult time to trip 
up a soul that is watchful and prayerful. "Again I say 
to you, watch." 

This life is in no way an uneasy and melancholy -one. 
It is a pleasant, sweet, heavenly, easy life. It is a life 
of true liberty, a life of deep humility. Still it is a life 
of holy exultation in the blessed privilege of commu- 
nion with God. Blessed company ! Christ-like solitude ! 
Heavenly Paradise ! We are never less alone than when 
alone, for then we are in the most honored company. We 
become acquainted with these private entertainments, 

with the King of Kings where we can get the best solid 

95 



"bread from heaven." 

comfort and the best food. I beg of you to commence 
living this blessed life. The sweets of prayer, the depth 
of heavenly delight and knowledge which never can be 
obtained in schools of learning, may be found here. 
You may be judged and condemned and criticised and 
considered peculiar and a mystery, and some may con- 
sider you in trouble or in affliction; but we joyfully bear 
it all, without a murmur, without a complaint. How 
many I have come in contact with who have given up 
this blessed life because they dreaded to be looked upon 
with suspicion by their brethren who were unacquainted 
with the secret of life hid with Christ in God. 

If you want to find gold, you must dig deep into the 
blessed will of God where real solid riches are found. 
"The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
of God." 

Some one may ask, If we are to live in this state of 
holy quietness, will we not then have to remain dumb? 
I answer, "By no means." Since the life of holy quiet- 
ness does not consist in a continual silence but in speak- 
ing when it is necessary and what is necessary. 

There is a time to speak and a time to be silent, but 
to do both well it is necessary that we walk quietly 
before God. Here is where we learn the lesson of God- 
like prudence, since unreasonable silence is as improper 

as ill-timed speaking. The Holy Spirit will teach you 

96 



HOI,Y QUIETNESS. 

to put a guard upon your mouth, and a gate of prudence 
before your lips. "We do not need to wall up our mouth 
or shut it so that we should never be able to open it, 
but the Holy Spirit will teach us as necessity will 
require. 

In this life of holy quietness we will be taught the 
necessity of considering well before deliberating. "We 
will be quick to hear and slow to speak. The heart of 
a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is 
in his heart. So that out words will come forth from 
our hearts well regulated by reason. If you will be 
healthy it is necessary to masticate your food or you will 
not fail to suffer from indigestion. So also, if we will 
be fit to teach others we must wait before God or we 
will be never qualified to do so. 

In this life of holy quietness, we will always have a 
pure motive in our conversation, which will be only for 
the glory of God. This frees us from manifest folly on 
the one hand, and disguise and hypocrisy on the other. 
Learning the lesson that when we speak, we speak in 
the presence of God. 

As we develop in this life, we will become more grace- 
ful and our manner of addressing others will show forth 
the spirit of Jesus. It will take away the boisterous, 
harsh, uncouth and authoritive manner of speaking to 

our brethren. It takes away the preach at, the pray at, 

97 



"BREAD FROM HKAVEN. 

the testify at, so that we will not use the meat-axe to 
chop people to pieces, but in the spirit of Christ-like 
devotion we will feed the lambs and feed the sheep and 
put away that dark, austere and iceberg countenance 
with wiry mouth, rolling-up and staring eyes and look- 
ing beneath our eyebrows as if we held everybody in 
suspicion or had arrived at such a point of our holiness 
as if the spirit of Jesus had left us. We wil] be free 
from all affection and effeminancy, Jbut act as become 
men filled with the Holy Spirit. 

There is a composition of sweetness and gravity which 
vice never teaches and which comes alone from a growth 
in holiness, so that when we are telling a brother a fault, 
we will not upbraid him. (1 Tim. 5:1.) If we put on 
affection or style or imitate others' mannerism, we will 
lose the force and energy of the Holy Spirit; for when 
water is good it has no taste. In like manner good 
speech or preaching never relishes affection. Oh, that 
we all might learn this lesson of holy waiting before God. 



A Life of Prayer. 



Ltfc. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A LEFE OF PEAYEE. 

The life of Jesus was a life of prayer. He rose early 
in the morning, a great while before day, and went into 
the desert place and there prayed. He opened and 
blessed the day with prayer. He continued all night 
with God in prayer. Prayer was known to be the habit 
of His life. What an example of prayer! After a night 
of prayer He chose the twelve. When the children were 
brought to Him He laid His hands on them and prayed. 
He began great enterprises and closed His labors with 
prayer. He entered into the wilderness to pray. The 
Spirit descended upon Him when He prayed. When the 
fashion of His countenance was altered He was in prayer. 
He entered the Garden of Gethsemane to agonize in 
prayer. He uttered a prayer of thanksgiving when the 
wise and learned rejected Him: "I thank Thee, oh 
Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide 
these things from the wise and prudent, and didst reveal 
them unto babes. Yea, Father, for so it was well pleas- 
ing in Thy sight." In entering upon the wonderful 
prayer recorded by John, we cross the threshold of the 
Holy of Holies. We bow our heads and take off our 
shoes as we venture upon this holy ground. This wonder- 



IOI 



ful prayer of Jesus is the purest and noblest ever uttered. 
It is the purest expression of the Christ of God. Its 
simplicity, its depth, its grandeur, its fervor, its love for 
others cannot be equalled. It could never be invented, 
but could only proceed from the consciousness of the 
One who poured out His soul at such a trying moment. 
It is one continuous stream of Divine love. Here, in 
human speech, Divinity is manifest and sublimity is 
linked to condescending humility. Those who have 
made any mark upon the world have been men of prayer. 
Luther prayed three hours a day. John Wesley's private 
devotions occupied two hours a day. Bramwell, that 
mighty Methodist, whose ministry was attended with 
such pentecostal power, spent six hours a day in private 
prayer, and, when he got to his knees, demons fled and 
his soul reveled in the secrets of God. Fletcher, Knox 
and George Fox were men who had mighty hold of God 
in prayer. The sanctified life is a life of prayer. Prayer 
is not only an exercise but an experience, a life. After 
we enter the land of perfect love we find it is easy to 
carry that text into our lives and practically to "pray 
without ceasing." The call to a holy life is doubtless 
the call to a life of prayer, to a life of sweet abiding 
communion and fellowship with Jesus. It is a pure love- 
spell that commences here and may last forever. It is 
the interior exercise of the soul in love. As we develop 



A LIFE OF PRAYER. 

in this life, we find it a joy to cultivate this intercourse 
with God more and more. All the trying and screwing 
down and forcing is over. This yoke of prayer is truly 
delightful. The soul having found its own element love3 
to live alone with God in the secret closet of the heart. 
This is its atmosphere. What unfolding of His treasures 
is found in this intimate intercourse with God! "What 
revelations of God's will is made known by the Holy 
Spirit through the Word to the soul that lives in sweet 
communion with Jesus! It is dwelling by the living 
waters where thirst is quenched, hunger is satisfied, the 
empty one filled, the afflicted and tossed one comforted, 
the weak becomes strong, and where persecution and 
suffering become its joy. It is the balm which soothes 
the troubled breast. It is where temptations are over- 
come, where demons fly. It is the child communing 
with the father who has such a big, loving and compas- 
sionate heart, and who is working all things for the good 
of His child who loves Him. Here is where the lamb 
learns to follow the shepherd, where the ear catches the 
sweet, gentle sound of Him, whose voiceless language 
speaks louder than the thunder roar, and still gentle like 
the dove. Here in this school the scholarly find their 
ignorance; the wise find how foolish they are; the great 
find out their utter insignificance. Blessed school, where 

we are taught to forget the language of the world; 

103 



"bread from hkaven. 

where we find our home in the heavenly places, and our 
conversation is the language of the heavenlies. How 
blessed to find this secret place, hidden away with God 
in our hearts. Here knowledge is found in the depth 
of our ignorance, wisdom in the depth of our foolish- 
ness, exaltation in the depth of humility, unsearchable 
riches in the depth of poverty. Here the Omnipotent 
comes in to be our power. What hidden secret treasures 
are revealed to those who live this life of prayer! Blessed 
exalted life! What condescension for God, not only to 
visit us, but to perpetually abide in us! He humbles 
Himself to become our audience. This school is open 
to the most unworthy, to the most illiterate. It is the 
key to real pungent repentance, the key to find the wit- 
ness to our adoption, the key to thorough abandonment, 
the key to obtain the pentecostal baptism. God bows 
down His ear to us and declares if we ask we shall 
receive. It is the key to advancement in the life of 
perfect love, the key to develop in every virtue, the key 
that unlocks the bank of Heaven, the key of power to 
keep demons under your feet. Public preaching, testi- 
mony and praying without this secret life of prayer is 
but chaff. It fails to feed the souls of those intrusted 
to our care. Here we learn not only to walk before God. 
in perfect love, but we also learn to mature in this life 

of perfection. It is the introduction into the presence 

104 



A UFE OF PRAYER. 

of God. Here is where we are changed from glory to 
glory. This life of prayer does not obstruct our daily 
employments, no matter what our vocation may be. It 
can be lived by kings, princes, ministers, laymen, poor, 
rich, sailers, soldiers, children, tradesmen, laborers, 
women, sick or well. Nothing may interrupt it. It 
suits all vocations in life. When we enter into it all 
worldly communication is but rubbish in comparison 
with this blessed conversation with God. Here the soul 
catches His voice, the breathings of the Divine whisper- 
ings. Blessed life of God within the soul! Here the 
pure, single eye beholds God. Holy repose ! Heavenly 
imparted peace ! Here the soul penetrates into the inner 
depths of the Divine life. Rejoicing is found when the 
heart is fixed on God only. Here is perpetual victory. 
Beloved, it is all true, true to my soul; so blessed to 
have the doors of the heart closed to the world and its 
noise. Here Jesus keeps us enclosed in Him. Its enjoy- 
ment and sweetness cannot be described. How blessed 
to be in the possession of God! There is nothing that 
men make so difficult as the possession of this life of 
prayer. How we discipline and fight and try and weep 
and put ourselves up in a vice, and carry large medita- 
tion books on death, judgment, Hell and Heaven; on the 
holy passion, on the seven last words of Jesus, on the 

mysteries of God. How we have formed our preludes 

105 



1 ' BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' ' 

and been systematic in separating our points and offer 
the aspirations of onr lips, and made our applications to 
improve our lives. What hours some of us have devoted 
in mental prayer. How we have knelt on our knees until 
we have become exhausted, and screamed out loud 
prayers and pounded the altar until our vocal powers 
have given out, but oh, what difficult work it was. But 
when we abandoned ourselves to God and let go all our 
creature efforts, and just let Him take possession of us, 
what perpetual fellowship and blessed ease we find in 
communing with our Father. He becomes more real and 
present to us than we are ourselves, and prayer becomes 
more natural than breathing. It is living on God Him- 
self; it is the bread sent down from Heaven. We enjoy 
His life, for we eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is 
less difficult than eating our natural food. It is so simple 
that it puzzles the most scholarly who are not entirely 
sanctified. He communes with us Himself. He inter- 
views the soul personally when we read the Word in the 
light of the lamp in which it was written, which is none 
other than the illumination of the Holy Spirit. I trust 
the blessed Jesus will impress upon all our hearts the 
necessity of reading the Word carefully, prayerfully, 
thoughtfully, and systematically. Of not only tasting 
it, but digesting it, until we extract the essence of what 

we read and appropriate it to our souls. It is not the 

1 06 



A LIFE OF PRAYER. 

quantity we read, it is the spirit and thought which 

yields the soul profit. Like the bee that remains upon 

the flower until it extracts the honey therefrom. Here 

is where God reveals His will and shows His expansive 

love to us. Here we are living a life of faith, not trying 

to believe, but an actual living life of faith in God being 

immediately present in our moral beings. Here is where 

we learn to sink into the will of God, and the Holy of 

Holies is truly found in our inmost center. Here we 

see plainly that all time is lost to those who do not seek 

and find to know God experimentally. Blessed Divine 

Reality! Here we are drawn from the circumference 

of the external and are closed into the internal secret 

sanctum. Here holy quietness is found. The soul 

digests the truth. It feeds on Christ-like pasture. It 

drinks of the still waters. It assimilates its food. Here 

fatigue is over and repose is found in the blood. There 

is no dissipation, it is full of simple trust; at times it is 

so taken with the object of its love that distractions do 

not trouble it. One passage of Scripture would give it 

enough for a lifetime, such as "My child, forget not my 

commandments," or "Abide in Me, and I in you," or 

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments," or "The seed 

of the woman shall crush the serpent's head," or "God 

so loved the world," or "As the Father hath loved Me, 

60 have I loved you, continue ye in My love." Here we 

107 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN.' 

bore into the truth. Here we seek the kingdom of God, 
not from without, but from within. Here we find the 
blessed lesson of meekness, which is non-resistant — the 
lesson of lowliness before our fellow creature. Here we 
are taught the lesson not to wander from truth to truth, 
but swallow one truth at a time. Here is where daily 
bread is found. The necessities of the soul are met, the 
Shepherd feeds His own sheep, we take the food from 
His own hand. "Thou feedest Thy flock." God is 
within. This is heavenly repose, childlike simplicity, 
heavenly trust. It is so easy to approach God with bold- 
ness, the terror is taken away and with little difficulty 
we approach Him with filial fear. He becomes annoint- 
ment poured out upon us. Here the fire of love is 
fanned and courage to be a conqueror is gained. Here 
all the devil's mountains are found to be but smoke. 
Here we seek nothing but God. Blessed peace ! Eeader, 
before you leave this book out of your hand, let me 
humbly entreat of you to abandon yourself to Him and 
give yourself up to this life of prayer. In this life of 
prayer we learn breadth, so that we do not become 
seclusive, like the Koman Catholic friars, and secede 
from all good people and condemn all other holy people 
who may not, providentially, be members of our denomi- 
nation. We are not desirous for leadership, but can bear 

to be miffed, our advice slighted, and our counsel passed 

108 



A UFE OF PRAYER. 

over. We avoid all scrupulosity which brings us into 
bondage, and we stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ 
hath made us free, whether in eating, drinking, or dress. 
We avoid the extreme of Jewish ritualism on the one 
hand, and Pharasaical legalism on the other. We become 
solid Christians so that we become saved from touchiness. 
How we have made our pious genuflections upon one 
and ofttimes on both knees! How we have prostrated 
ourselves upon the steps of the altar in front of the 
tabernacle! How we have gone from one altar to an- 
other and lighted our candles, and decorated them with 
flowers and knelt for hours, muttering Pater Aves both 
in English and Latin! How we have looked so 
solemn, with our eyes turned up to the statue of the 
Virgin Mary, or Saint Alyous Gonziga! How santi- 
monious we have been! How we have run so often on 
our momentary visits to the blessed sacrament! How 
we have repeated our offices, our Eosaries, united our- 
selves with the Sodalities, and Confraternities, and 
dressed ourselves in our Soutans, but through it all 
how far off we were from this life of prayer, this life 
of simple, loving communication with God. How we 
have kissed the Crucifix, and worn the five Scapulars, 
and the Cord of Saint Francis and Saint Joseph! How 
we have done our best to gain our partial and plenary 

indulgences! but, oh, how far off we were from God! 

109 



"bread from heaven." 

We had not the life which comes from Him. What 
condescension on the part of Jesus to call us from this 
dark life of religiousness, to open our eyes that we might 
see as clear as the sunbeam, and enter into the Holy of 
Holies. To bring us into the companionship of His 
select people, into blessed companionship with Himself, 
so that we can see, taste, and handle the word of life. 
Blessed Jesus! It is too much. Thy humility causes 
us to abase ourselves in Thy presence; unto us who 
are less than the least of all saints that enjoy the sancti- 
fying grace, that Thou should instruct us to preach the 
unsearchable riches of Christ! In the language of 
Peter, we exclaim, "To whom shall we go?" Thou hast 
the words of eternal life, Confraternities, Litanies, 
Rosaries, Stations of the Cross, consecrated wafers, 
monthly and annual retreats, confessions, communions, 
confirmations, extreme unctions, holy orders, even the 
so-called apostolic succession, Epworth Leagues, Chris- 
tian Endeavors, young and old people's meetings, Bands 
of Hope, loyalty to Church Organizations, a ritualistic 
legalism, building fine churches, cushioned pews, philo- 
sophical and logical discussions, are poor substitutes for 
holy communion with God. Doubtless some of the 
above things have their place, but they are poor sub- 
stitutes for this blessed life of prayer, this heart knowl- 
edge of God. This interior fellowship with Jesus sux- 

IIO 



A UFK OF PRAYER. 

passes tliem all. Here is where sweet resignation is 
found. Divine unction, tenderness and gladness are dis- 
covered in the furnace of affliction. Here light dispels 
the gloom, and not only the sunshine, but the Son Him- 
self ilium iness and warms the heart. Here words of 
hope and cheer are found. When everyone forsakes 
you, here the glory holds; here we get to be like Him; 
here we dwell on heights, not merely visit, but dwell 
and abide. Here God is our defense; bread is provided 
and water is sure. Here we see the awfulness of sin, 
and at the same time see the elevation of man raised 
to an equality in sonship with Jesus. Here the soul 
knows God. Here we learn to know the provision of 
Divine Providence, behold the fowls of the air, etc. 
We learn to cease from our own wisdom, for there is 
a war declared against those who are wise in their own 
eyes, and prudent in their own sight. (Isaiah 5: 21.) 
If the miner would find gold, he must dig deep; so in 
this life of prayer we learn to dig deeper than imagina- 
tion or fiction, or to look at the Word through other 
people's glasses, deeper than human wisdom or profane 
knowledge or vain philosophy; in order that we may be 
enriched by Him in all truth pertaining to our present 
and eternal salvation and the salvation of others. Here 
we learn heavenly language. This is deeper than 

materialism or mere fleshly demonstration or science 

in 



''bread from heaven." 

so-called. Here we learn what cannot be gained by the 
mere intellent alone. This is a revelation. It baffles 
the scholarly that are carnal; deeper than primary 
thoughts, for He has declared that He will destroy the 
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nought the under- 
standing of the prudent. Here is found the foolishness 
of God, which far excels the wisdom of men and the 
weakness of God, which surpasses the great strength of 
man. Here the heart is the guide of the head. The 
called are not many among the wise or the mighty, or 
among the noble, but God chooses the foolish things of 
the world to confound the wise, and the weak things to 
confound the mighty. Here the soul gets down below 
the base and the despised and the things that are not. 
Here is where true wisdom is found. Human wisdom of 
itself is not lasting, does not stand the test of the death- 
bed nor the Word of God, and will crumble in the face 
of the judgment. It is the wisdom which prophesies 
falsely. It is that which deceives. It seeks peace where 
peace is never found. Here is wisdom that is sublime, 
God-like, which comes from above, which is pure, peace- 
able, easy to be entreated, without partiality and 
hypocrisy. It is divine wisdom which guides, teaches, 
illumines, inspires, brings the perfect peace which calms 
the troubled breast. Here we love to separate from the 
crowd, to be apart with Jesus. We drink of the One 

112 



A UFE OF PRAYER. 

Spirit, and obtain our sermons here direct from God Him- 
self. Blessed life of sweet communion! Here we are 
taught not to open our hearts to everyone, but to God 
and to those who live in the Heavenlies. 



113 



Temptations, Trials and Tests. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TESTS. 

Though we are delivered from inbred sin or human 
depravity wo are still exposed to the assaults of the 
enemy. Temptations come from the devil. During our 
probationary state we not only are exposed to tempta- 
tions, but it is permitted by God that we be also tried 
and tested. Trials and tests prove our loyalty and devo- 
tion to Jesus; for "the Lord your God prove th you to 
know whether you love the Lord your G od with all your 
heart, and with all your soul." (Dcut. 13: 3.) God in 
His divine wisdom, and doubtless for our good, does not 
permit us to see all we would have to pass through. 
When we make our complete abandonment on our first 
entering into the gracious experience of perfect love He 
keeps it hid from us, because He knows our weakness 
and how liable we would be to draw back from the 
future which then lies before us. Oh, how patient and 
tender, loving and wise our Heavenly Father is. If you 
and I were to see all that we have passed through at the 
moment that we were entering into the gracious experi- 
ence of full salvation, it is doubtful whether or not some 
of us would not have drawn back at the time; but, 
blessed be God! our hearts rejoice when we see the wis- 

117 



"bread from heaven." 

dom of such an indulgent Father. Afterward, when we 
are crushed and bruised and cramped and cooped up in 
tight places, He gives us the needed grace to be loyal at 
all costs while passing through the fiery furnace, and 
we find that, like our blessed Lord, we too have to learn 
obedience by the things that we suffer. 

He who is the Son of God the incarnate word, He 
who was made flesh and dwelt among us; who is blessed 
forevermore; who was manifest in the flesh, justified in 
the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
believed on in the world; who is truly God and truly 
man; who possessed a body and soul; who walked and 
labored, was weary and tired, ate and drank, lived and 
died, like other men; who sweat and bled, died and was 
buried; who was called the Son of God seventy-one times 
in the Scripture; whom it pleased the Lord to bruise 
and to put to grief; who poured out His soul unto death; 
who said, "My soul is troubled;" lie had sympathies and 
feelings just as other men have; He was touched with 
infirmities, bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows; He 
was afflicted, oppressed; it pleased the Lord to bruise 
Him; He suffered unto temptation; and, having suf- 
fered and been tempted, He is able to succor us when 
we are tempted. Jesus Christ, who was perfect God, 
had a perfect humanity, both a human body, as well as a 
human soul. Still, He who was perfect God and perfect 

118 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TESTS. 

man had to learn obedience by the things that He 
suffered. By suffering He became a perfect Savior. 
But while He was a perfect God-man, still He would 
never have been a perfect Savior until He suffered and 
bled and paid the price upon Calvary's cross for our 
redemption. This reveals to us that the preaching of 
a beautiful, loving, ideal, historic, and model Christ is 
a gospel that saves no one. How well the Apostle Paul 
understood this when he declared that he determined to 
know nothing among the Christians at Corinth but 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 

The Son of God might have lived an innocent, beauti- 
ful, lovely, conscientious life, He might have presented 
to the world an ideal character, a beautiful model, 
worthy of our imitation, but this would never have saved 
us. He had to be born, suffer just like other children 
suffer, live a life of poverty and sufferings, be mocked 
by Scribes and Sadduces and High Priests, drink the 
bitter cup in Gethsemane's garden and die upon 
Calvary's cross. 

He had to learn obedience by things He suffered in 
order to become a perfect Savior and the author of 
eternal salvation unto all them who obey Him. Here 
we find a deep lesson, that the principle of obedience 
is one thing, and that the application of that principle 
drawn out in our every-day life is quite another thing. 

119 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

There was in Jesus the principle of obedience to the 
carrying out of the redemptive purposes of His eternal 
Father when He was born into this world. In that 
principle of itself there was no suffering, but the suffer- 
ing is experienced by the learning of obedience in the 
application of that principle being drawn out in His 
every-day life, until He paid the price of a world's 
redemption on the cross. -Here we see the awfulness 
of sin, that nothing could have appeased the wrath of 
God and saved us from an eternal hell but the life and 
sufferings and death of His own dear Son. What an 
awful sin it must be to wilfully deny eternal punish- 
ment, and teach that there is no hell, and that we are 
saved by works or reformation or a second probation 
or the flames of Purgatory! Is it not denying the 
complete redemption which Jesus Christ provided on 
the cross for all those who will comply with the condi- 
tions laid down in His Word? God gave His only be- 
gotten Son to save a lost and ruined world from hell, 
and Jesus gave Himself for the sanctification of the 
Church. Those who wilfully deny eternal punishment, 
who say it is all mercy and no justice, or reward and 
no punishment, do not commend themselves to anyone's 
sound judgment nor to the simple teachings of the Word 
of God. Certainly no one need be damned. God has 
provided a way of escape, but, be assured, if we die in 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIADS AND TESTS. 

our sins without repentance, if we rebel against God 
and sin away our day of grace, we will find out at the 
day of judgment that as the blood-washed will enter 
in to receive their final reward, so also will you, if you 
wilfully and consciously reject the offered mercy of our 
Savior, who will then be your Judge, prove that He 
will condemn you to eternal damnation, where there 
will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
Mark you! as there is a real Heaven there is also a real 
hell; as there is a final reward for the saints as also there 
is a final punishment for the wicked. There is a real 
Heaven, a real hell, a real judgment, an awful, endless, 
eternal lake of despair, where lost men and women, with 
hosts of demons, will torment God's saints no more. 
Oh reader, in the name of Jesus, be wise! Jesus has 
done and is doing all that He possible can to warn you 
by the terms of the law and to woo you with His great 
Heart of Love to the blessed knowledge of Himself as 
your pardoning God and your blessed sanctifier. 

Precious sinner, poor backslider, do not delay. As 
you read these words, flee from the wrath to come, 
take courage, take a steadfast look unto Jesus, repent, 
believe, abandon, let Him have you, and in a spirit of 
earnest and believing prayer claim all that you need 
for your souls. 

In something of the same manner, if not in the same 

121 



" BRKAD FROM HEAVEN." 

degree, we have to learn obedience by the tilings that 
we suffer, not only from the time we are regenerated 
until we are entirely sanctified, but after we have entered 
into the gracious experience of full salvation. 

Perhaps you recall to mind the first time you defi- 
nitely testified to the experience of entire sanctification. 
You remember how the folk looked at you with sus- 
picion and declared that you were unsafe, not to be 
relied upon, that you had lost your head and become 
fanatical, or perhaps, like an individual that I am 
acquainted with, they may have sent for the physican 
to examine your head, to see if you were not a real 
case of insanity, fitted only for the asylum. You may 
know something of what it means for your school asso- 
ciates to drop you, and for those in the church to be so 
afraid of coming near you that you are allowed the 
privilege to occupy the entire seat alone; and when the 
minister or priest who was considered to be the repre- 
sentative of God, would look down upon you and declare 
you mad and possessed of a demon, and who under- 
handedly would advise others to have nothing to do with 
you and would expose you to all manner of slander. 
Perhaps you understand something of what it means 
to be in the home of your own loved ones, say father 
and mother, who would look upon you as a mystery and 
who for days and weeks and months would never ex- 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIADS AND TESTS. 

change conversation with you. Perhaps yon understand 
what it means to be cramped up so that you have no 
liberty to speak, knowing that you would be mis- 
represented and misunderstood, with no look from a 
precious father but a withering frown of disapproval, 
and with no manifest love from a fond mother but a 
pity mingled with disgust. You may understand some- 
thing of the loneliness where there seemed to be no com- 
fort, no consolation, no human sympathy, where inter- 
nally your heart would be crushed and bruised, and where 
sorrow would press you until it almost became insupport- 
able to bear. Perhaps you understand some interior 
and refined sufferings which never can be expressed by 
word, and which pen would fail to describe. Perhaps 
you have experienced what it is for a father to drive 
you from your parental roof, and mother to be helpless 
in seeking your protection. When friendless and alone 
you walk the streets, penniless, fatherless, motherless, 
to be disinherited, and under cunning religiousness of 
unholy ecclesiasticism to be driven out into the cold, 
dark, and bleak world, to look around for comfort and 
human sympathy and companionship, and find it not. 
Perhaps even in Protestantism to suffer ostracism, un- 
kind criticism, deprived of the fellowship of your breth- 
ren for your loyalty to incarnate conviction, and the 
power of the precious blood to save and sanctify. 

123 



BREAD FROM HEAVKN. 

You may understand some tiling of the sneer and jeer 
and dodgery of ministerial, and ritualistic and legalistic 
connivery. Everything may have seemed as dark as 
night to you, sorrows flooded in upon you; temptations 
came in like a volcano; your body weakened; grief so 
great that even tears could not flow from your eyes, and 
you stood or sat as one petrified. It seemed almost that 
Jesus had gone from you; you trembled and feared. It 
seemed that God had disappeared; you were over- 
whelmed with sorrow; there seemed not a smile; no 
possibility to see His face, but just at that moment you 
had learned to know that here you learn obedience by 
the things that you suffer, and when there was no joy, 
no ecstasy, and no friend that Jesus had been teaching 
us to depend on nothing but Him; naked faith! Sweet 
land of faith! where we learn to retire in God, and 
where we learn to know that it is better to eat bread 
without sugar then sugar without bread. 

Blessed state! Only omnipotent power can sustain 
us at such a time! Blessed is that soul which remains 
faithful in the midst of dryness and deprivation of all 
sensible consolations. They form the crucible in which 
the pure gold or perfect love is refined. Happy he who 
learns by the things that he suffers with patience ! 

If your perfect love is ill-ordered, it will not stand 
this test, it will be a fish out of water, a tree transplanted 

124 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TKSTS. 

into a soil which, is not fit for it. Yon will discover at 
this place that yon are not much, bnt you are ex- 
cellently well what yon are. Oh, blessed life of faith! 
Blessed Jesns! to whom I avowed all my heart, all my 
joys, all my sorrows, all I shall lack. If I never enjoyed 
Thy delights, if I am never to be inebriated with the 
abundance of the goods of Thine house, if I am never 
to enjoy the ecstasies which come from Thee, I know 
I have Thee, I know Thou dost sanctify, and I am satis- 
fied with Thyself; Thou art as beautiful as the moon, 
shining as the sun; if I cannot have joys, I am satisfied 
with Thee. All I ask is to love Thee with a pure and 
perfect love. ISTo matter what state of grace we may 
attain to, we must bear in mind that as long as we are 
on probation we will be exposed to temptations and 
assaults of the Evil One. Certainly the war is all over 
inside, the carnal mind is destroyed; but externally we 
are in for war on the world, the flesh and the devil, and 
this war shall continue until Christ shall have put all 
power under His feet. So that it is foolish to entertain 
the thought that you are not going to be opposed by 
all the forces of hell. But we are to count it all joy 
when we fall into divers temptations. It is foolish to 
pray to God to keep you from temptation, for tempta- 
tion is the spiritual gymnasium to develop your spiritual 
muscle. lie will not surfer us to sink or fall or to be 

125 



"bread from heaven. 

tempted above that which we are able to bear, but we 
are to have an eternal vigilance in watchfulness and 
prayer, and to nibble at the bait when He places the 
temptation before us. Adam and Eve were tempted; 
the Son of God Himself was tempted, and you and I, 
while on probation, will be tempted; never are you in 
more danger than when you entertain the thought that 
you have gotten beyond temptation, and never will the 
devil make a greater assault upon you than when you 
openly avow that the blood of Jesus does sanctify you. 
I was much amused at a brother in Licking County, 
Ohio, who entered into the experience of perfect love. 
On the following day he came to meeting, and rising 
to his feet to testify, he seemed to be distressed, and 
with tears streaming down his cheeks he said, "Brother, I 
don't know what is the matter; I know that Jesus sancti- 
fied me yesterday, and by simple faith I slipped into 
experience. Oh," he said, "it was gracious, it was 
heavenly, I never experienced such a blessing in all my 
life; oh, what sweet rest, blessed peace, holy quietness; 
it was wonderful! wonderful!" But he said, "I don't 
know what's the matter to-day, I never," he said, "was 
tempted so much in all my life. It seems that all hell 
has attacked me." The leader of the meeting could 
but smile, for he was through such an experience once 
himself, and turning to this distressed brother he said, 

126 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TESTS. 

"Beniember that we can never reach the place in this life 
where we are free from temptation. Before you entered 
into the experience Yesterday the devil did not trouble 
you much, because he had a mortgage on you, but since 
you gave a warrantee deed of the entire property to 
Jesus he feels his loss, and he is after you to recover 
the deed. Brother, hold on, he can't get it as long as 
you have it in the hands of Jesus; testify to the blood; 
declare your right; resist him and he will flee from 
you." The brother's face lit up with joy and raising 
his hands declaring victory, and shouting out at the 
top of his voice, a The blood of Jesus does sanctify me," 
and shaking hands with the brethren he remarked, "I 
never seen it before like that. I will count it all joy 
when I fall into divers temptations." 

It is the business of the devil to tempt you, to lay a 
secret snare for your soul; he lies in ambush; and if you 
are godly you mil be persecuted by men and demons. 

Xever let him deceive you, that you are not sanctified 
because you are tempted. Have recourse to prayer; 
testify to the blood; be industrious; resist him with your 
testimony; don't argue or reason or talk back to him, 
or he will down you. The blood is all your plea, and 
the only way to overcome him is by the blood of the 
Lamb, the word of your testimony. M any tender souls 
have been deceived by the enemy on this point. They 

127 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

have thought they were lost because they were severely 
tempted after they had entered the land of Canaan. 

Claim the blood; this is your only weapon; one of the 
infallible signs that we belong to God is that the devil 
is after us. Like the hunter, who is after the swift 
animals as the hare or the stag, so the devil will be after 
you, but God will give you hind's feet so you can get 
to the mountains of prayer, victory and glory. He will 
bring you up into a high tower. The devil always likes 
to go after a good cargo; or he will seek night and day 
to get those whom he is aware have a gold mine. Do 
not be alarmed if you are sorely tempted in the sanctified 
life. He had the cheek to assault your divine Lord right 
after the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form 
of a dove when He was led into the wilderness to 
fast and pray. This doubtless was to reveal to us the 
lesson that we must be prepared for his attacks, after 
we have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. (Luke 
9: 26.) 

This will aid us from the sin of presumption. It will 
teach us that we must love secret prayer, and the read- 
ing of the Word. As a bird perceives not that it is 
taken until it finds itself in the net, so we never perceive 
that there is a real devil until we have completely come 
out on God's side. Do not then be astonished or get dis- 
couraged, no matter how many or trying the tempta- 

128 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TESTS. 

tions may be. Remember there is always a way of 
escape. 

After we have entered into the experience of perfect 
love, we experience a great deal of comfort and delight 
and sometimes our joy overflows the banks. There is a 
full tide, and we seem to think while in the enjoyment 
that there is no possibility of being tempted any more. 
But we all have found out that there comes a time 
when this emotional joy ebbs down to low water mark, 
and the temptations flood in, and right at this place will 
be proven whether we have pure and perfect love or 
whether we have been depending on our emotional joys. 

We must not depend upon leaping, or jumping, or 
singing, or shouting, or our feelings, or our emotions, but 
on Jesus. He is the pardoner of our sins; He is the 
sanctifier of our nature; He is the foundation of our 
spiritual structure; He is the balm of our wounds; the 
eye-salve of all our blindness; the guide of all our per- 
plexities; the hope in all our discouragements; the light in 
all our darkness; the joy in all our sorrows; the strength 
in all our weakness; the wisdom in all our foolishness; 
the knowledge in all our ignorance; He the defence 
when we are defenceless; if we depend on anything else 
we will be sure to fail. 

We esteem the words of His mouth more than food; 
they are sweeter than honeycomb. Exult in His prom- 

129 



"bread from heaven." 

ises; take delight in His commandments; nothing else 
will satisfy your soul. He is the bread sent down from 
Heaven. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. 
His words are spirit and life; He is the hidden manna; 
walk in humble obedience and child-like faith before 
Him, trusting the blood to cleanse you from all sin. 

Gird yourself with truth; wrap yourself around with 
His inspired words and thoughts and conceptions. Have 
the mind of Christ; put on the breast-plate of righteous- 
ness, the power of right doing, which Satan can never 
penetrate, because it is perfect. Breast-plate of our 
righteousness is full of flaws, easily penetrated and shat- 
tered, affording easy entrance for Satan's shafts. Have 
your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of 
peace, have the shield of faith. Believe God's word; 
hold it with simple confidence, that it is true, all true 
for you. This shield to be held with determination that 
never yields, and is backed by an assurance that all the 
powers of Heaven support it. Put on the hemlet of 
salvation; emblazon on it flaming letters of faith; "saved 
and sanctified." The sanctified head needs such a hem- 
let; it is the only one that will protect it during these 
days of scientific doubt and keep it cool when the shock 
of battle comes. Wield the sword of the spirit, the 

Word of God; shout the law of the spirit of life in Christ 

130 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIALS AND TKSTS. 

Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 
death. 

Let your life be hid with Christ in God, for He that 
is begotten of God keepeth himself, and the "Wicked 
One touches Him not, for by one offering He hath per- 
fected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy 
Ghost is a witness. Therefore you can do all things in 
Christ who is your strength ; in all these things you can 
be more than conqueror through Him that loved you. 
Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. 
Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the 
spirit and watching thereunto; pray without ceasing; 
Stand! Stand! Withstand! and having done all, Stand! 

Bear in mind that though your heart is pure, Satan 
is not chained in hell, you are his enemy and he will 
oppose you with all his Satanic might, but God will give 
you the needed cheer, comfort and consolation. Take 
courage, keep looking unto Him, the author and finisher 
of your faith. Remember, there is no defeat to those 
who place their whole trust in God. Triumphant victory 
is bound to be yours if you keep on the Pentecostal line. 
Incarnate foes will endeavor to conquer you, God will 
put them to shame, and His judgment will be bound to 
visit them that interfere with the work of the Holy 
Ghost, wilfully. Do not fight your enemies, beware 
of tit-tating, leave them with God, pray much and 

131 



BREAD FROM HEAVKN. 

weep on your face that God may bring salvation to them, 
that they may not continue in their folly and in the 
end be damned eternally. 

It is an awful crime to oppose the work of the Holy 
Ghost or for any one to put their hands on God's 
anointed. Keep a spirit-level on your head, or in other 
words keep your head in the cellar, for there is no time 
that we need coolness and recollection so much as when 
difficulties, trials and temptations crowd in upon us. 

For Jesus' sake and to save your soul, and for the sake 
of others who are watching you carefully, be steady; 
stand together hand and heart with all those who are 
pushing holiness. We can afford to die for Jesus and 
Holiness, but never, never retreat; and now is the time 
to stand by the Cross, when the mob is crying out, 
"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Don't flinch one inch; 
be willing to be jeopardized for Jesus' sake. Remember 
that holiness is the only thing that will ever bring the 
Church back to Pentecost. The devil will try to steal 
a march on you, and in his own silky voice will offer the 
suggestion to you, "Why have such a fight?" "Why 
spend all your strength and time and money and in- 
fluence and tears and blood when you can have peace?" 
He will do all in his power to get you to surrender inch 
by inch; he will request of you to send your ambassadors, 
and he will send and see how you can compromise, to 

132 



TEMPTATIONS, TRIADS AND TESTS. 

see how you meet his conditions of peace. Ah! devilish 
suggestions! How the church of God has been para- 
lyzed. How some of the most splendid revival efforts 
how some of our most hopeful campaigns against the 
devil, the world and the flesh, have been brought to 
nought by the suggestions from the pit. 

How true, how true this is! Oh, for the sake of Jesus, 
stand steadfast, immovable, just at this trying crisis! 
Oh, the mightiness of meekness! Hell cannot injure 
you. Testify definitely to full salvation; enjoy it in the 
secret core of your heart. Push and press holiness meet- 
ings everywhere. Our business is not so much to build 
any churches or tear down any; spend and be spent for 
souls, souls, souls! Cowards will retreat, but God will 
honor the one who will endure hardness like a good 
soldier of Jesus Christ. The secret of all failures and 
all true success is hidden in the attidute of the soul in 
its private walk with God. If you courageously wait 
on God, you are bound to succeed; you cannot fail. 
To others you may appear for the present to fail but in 
the end they will see what you knew all the time, that 
God was with you, making you in spite of all appear- 
ances a success. Our divine Lord puts the secret in these 
words: "But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy 
closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy 
Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth 

133 



in secret shall reward thee openly." Bear in mind that 
all failure has its origin in the closet, in neglecting to 
wait on God until He fills you with divine wisdom, 
clothes you with divine power, and enlarges your heart 
and fills you with the love-fire of the Holy Spirit. 



i34 



Joy and Sadness. 



m 



CHAPTER IX. 

JOY AND SADNESS. 

After we have entered into the blessing of entire sanc- 
tification we should be careful not to permit the enemy 
to get us into a life of sadness and continual groaning. 
Cast sadness from thee, because it has destroyed many 
who would have been noble souls. Sadness is a disease 
which is very seldom cured. Beware of admitting it 
into your soul. If it once gets possession of you, it will 
deprive you of your relish for prayer, both in secret as 
well as in public, also your love for reading and studying 
the Scriptures. It will turn your religious life into a 
hard tyrannical thing, and sooner or later you will give 
up all together. It will make you severe and denunci- 
atory, critical and cold towards your brethren. Every 
little thing will disturb you; you will become suspi- 
cious of every one else; you will become interiorly im- 
patient, externally unattractable, and if you do not 
watch at times it will deprive you of the exercise of your 
good judgment and common sense. Then will come 
diffidences, fears, bitterness, loss of God, and a back- 
sliden state. I have met with some men of great wisdom 
and merit, who seemingly abandon themselves to this 

137 



11 BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

melancholy condition. It destroys your spirituality, 
therefore I say, "Beware of the enemy on this point" 
Sadness is the retreat of demons, it is at these seasons 
that Satan hides himself to destroy you, he waits until 
sadness overtakes you, then cunningly he lays his bait 
for you, aids you in discouragement and despondency, 
and then down you go. Sadness in your heart is a 
source of joy to the devil, for then it is easy for him to 
get you to leave God, and perhaps despair altogether. 
Oh that I might impress upon you the necessity to 
watch and pray on this point. Bear in mind that the 
life of the sanctified Christian is a life of joy. Joy in 
the Holy Ghost. It is the privilege of the sanctified to 
rejoice in the God and Kock of their salvation. The devil 
and wicked men ought to be the only ones to be sad. 
The sanctified soul serves God with joy, it is His will 
that we serve Him in this manner. God loves him who 
gives what he has with joy. "Whatsoever thou givest to 
God, give with a good heart and joyful countenance. 
The husband and wife love to serve one another with 
joy, so also our blessed Jesus loves to be served not out 
of a sense of duty, but with joy and affection. When 
Isreal offered unto the Lord gold, silver and precious 
stones they did so with exceeding great joy. He re- 
gards not so much the thing given, but the motive, the 
intention, in which it is given. "When we serve Him 

138 



JOY AND SADNESS. 

with joy we give Him the glory, because when we give 
with affection all we have we give nothing but what we 
would gladly give if it lay in our power to do so. 

All we do for Jesus in the sanctified life is of such a 
delight that it does not seem to occupy an hour's time, 
or if it takes more, perfect love hinders us from ex- 
periencing it. The sanctified life is a life of perfect 
love service. I have ofttimes thought that some Prot- 
estants whom I have come in contact with, and some 
who even profess the gracious experience of full salva- 
tion, had lost their vocation, and that instead of being 
Protestants they had a right to be Koman Catholics, 
buried away in some convent, monastery, or cloister. 
Their long faces, with their hard, frigid, cold, iceberg, 
legalistic, severe, stand-off-from-me countenance. They 
forget that when we are to fast we are not to do as the 
hypocrites do, who have sad, long, pale-faced counte- 
nances, disfiguring ourselves with turned-up eyes, rolling 
in our heads, as to give everybody to understand we 
had all there was in the world, and that every one else 
had none. When sanctified saints fast they anoint their 
heads with the oil of the joy of gladness and wash their 
faces so that there is no sign of hypocrisy or mock 
religiousness. 

It is a great mistake to imagine that in order to pre- 
serve decorum and religious modesty that a holy man 

139 



"bread from heaven." 

or woman is to have a monkish countenance, with eyes 
always cast down to the ground. Christ like modesty is 
holy, happy, cheerful; cheerfulness mixed with modesty 
and modesty mixed with cheerfulness, when joined 
together, have a pleasant effect, and are graceful in the 
sanctified life. It not only honors God, but wins and 
edifies our brethren, and the esteem of a holy life is 
more increased, for when we serve God with joy we 
prove to the worldling that a holy life has not as many 
obstacles and difficulties as is imagined, and as men's 
hearts are made for joy, they will travel the road where 
they will expect it, especially pastors, evangelists, and 
religious workers, who are the called of God, ought to 
be cheerful, and serve God in the fullness of joy. There 
is nothing which will inspire others to seek after the 
Lord, whom we profess to know and serve, as to be filled 
with the fullness of His joy, and to allow Him to put 
His shine upon our countenance, which will win others 
to Jesus. Every one I have come in contact with seems 
to be seeking after joy, and I am impressed that the more 
sunshine that is in our hearts and on our faces the more 
God will use us to attract souls to Himself. This joy 
comes from living on the bread sent down from Heaven. 
Living on the hidden manna, and drinking from the 
wells of His salvation. When we serve God with joy 
our actions become more pleasing, in fact it is a maxim 

140 



JOY AND SADNESS. 

in philosophy that joy perfects a work, and sadness cor- 
rupts it. "We see daily around us that there is a great 
difference between those who do their work with joy 
and those who live lives of sadness and perpetual groan- 
ing. I have oftentimes been impressed that many Prot- 
stant ministers and workers resemble so much the Fran- 
ciscans or Cistercians, who spend their lives in continual 
groanings and doing works of penance, and whose 
preaching is all on the sledge-hammer order. If the 
sanctified life is anything, it is a life of joy, a life that 
does not pound or drive away, but that draws, wins, 
woos, feeds the lambs and feeds the sheep. Joy and 
contentment give strength and courage to what we do. 
I have run the way of thy commandments with a dilated 
heart, we run and are not weary, we walk and do not 
faint. 

The soul which is joyous is more likely to persevere. 
Sad souls do not have stability, when you see a person 
who is loaded, walk heavily and uneasily and that seems 
out of breath, or replace and unfit his burdens anew, 
and that he lets sometimes one thing and then another 
fall down, we judge presently that he is a man who is 
quite spent, and able to do no more — seeing him ever 
ready to fall under his burden. But on the contrary, 
when we see another who steadily carries his burden 
and sings and rejoices all the way he goes, we conclude 

141 



'bread from heaven. 

that there is hope that he will carry his burden to the 
end of his journey, and that he will not fail on the way. 
It is the same with a Christian, those who have sorrows 
printed on their foreheads, long, hard, frigid, iceberg 
faces while they perform the duties of their profession, 
and while there may be nothing which you can detect 
in their lives which is not consistent, but who still are 
constantly groaning, murmuring, complaining, repin- 
ing, fault-finding, criticising, condemning, who in place 
of having the joy of the perfect love slave, give very 
little hope of perseverance, but those who bear the yoke 
of Jesus with love, cheerfulness, joy and singing, em- 
ployed in what may appear the meanest duties and the 
most painful exercises, and who find nothing too diffi- 
cult to do for Jesus' sake, give great hopes of stability 
and perseverance to the end. 

We should never allow our faults or our infirmities to 
rob us of cheerfulness and joy in the Holy Ghost, that 
is, we ought not to be discouraged or contristated. Let us 
keep our mistakes in the cellar and Jesus in the parlor, 
let us never speak of them, but let us improve on them. 
Mistakes are not sins. "When we make a mistake, we 
make a much greater mistake to allow the devil to get 
us into a state of sadness. !No man has a perfect body, 
or a perfect mind. God nowhere has promised to give 
us a perfect head. "We all have our infirmities, but He 

142 



JOY AND SADNKSS. 

will give us a balance weight of eternal glory to keep 
us steady. Paul gloried in his infirmities. We ought 
to be sad for nothing, but for voluntary and known 
sin against the law of God; no soul is free from infirmi- 
ties and from making mistakes this side of heaven. God 
will overlook a thousand mistakes of head, and hand, and 
tongue, but He will never overlook one conscious and 
wilful sin. If you are pure in heart, like clarified honey 
without wax, with perfect love, if you have made a mis- 
take, use your God-given wisdom and common sense in 
confessing it, make it a stepping-stone to improve there- 
by, but do not permit the devil to cast you down. Ask for 
the perpetual joy of His salvation, and fortify your mind 
and heart with this holy joy in your heart. Look out 
for the enemy; he will do his utmost to plunge you into 
sadness, and thereby rob you of the sweetness of the 
things of God. He will bring your past life up before 
you like a transformation scene, he will magnify your 
mistakes into mortal sins, he will do all that lies in his 
power to get your eye off Jesus on yourself, or some 
denomination, or some form of Comeotism, or some gift, 
or some failure, or some success. Beware I say, watch; 
again I say watch! 

Remember that it is the trick of the devil. Doubtless 
you and I have made mistakes, but a little prudence, and 
courage, and prayer, and inward heart-dealing with God, 

143 



and lie will not be able to destroy or weaken you, and 
which will keep you from afflicting yourself. These 
mistakes or imperfections ought certainly to keep us 
humble in the sight of God, and excite in us a great 
degree of love in seeing the long suffering of our 
Heavenly Father, who bears with such a number of His 
blundering children. "We see how much we stand in 
need of Divine Grace at every moment of our lives. This 
ought to teach us to be on our guard. Learn from the 
past failures to improve in the present and the future. 
Bear in mind the sanctified life is but a school to learn 
of Him the great lessons of meekness and lowliness of 
heart, where true rest alone is found. If you have made 
mistakes, or seen your infirmities, do not be discouraged. 
Take new courage, ask God to strengthen you in the 
weak place! 

In imitation of the child, as soon as he blunders he 
gets up again, and never once thinking of his mistake, 
continues to run and play and be as joyful as before. So 
you quickly arise out of your great discouragement, and 
run in the way God would have you go. A loving 
father beholds the mistake of his child with compassion 
and not with anger. God, who is our father, does the 
same with us. He loves us as His sanctified children. 
He knows that we are but human, and our mistakes and 
weak points only excite Him to love and tenderness 

144 



JOY AND SADNESS. 

and compassion for us, rather than indignation. As a 
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear Him, for He knows of what matter we are 
made, and He has not forgotten that we are dust. Those 
who look over wilful sin are generally those who treat 
unmercifully the sanctified saints when they make a 
mistake. Not so with our Heavenly Father. All our 
faults and mistakes disappear before His love and 
mercy, through the atonement of His son Jesus. They 
melt away like wax before fire. What love, zeal, grati- 
tude, cheerfulness this ought to excite in us that our 
many mistakes do not hinder Him from loving and does 
not diminish the sanctified grace in us. 

Live in the spirit of prayer, live in the perpetual abid- 
ing. These are excellent to prevent us from getting 
into sadness. Are any in suffering, let them pray. 
(James 5: 13.) He is glorious and excellent. (Psalms 
76 : 4.) Thy statutes have been my song in this house 
of pilgrimage. H the conversation of a friend is some- 
times sufficient to relieve and banish trouble, how much 
more joy, content, and sweetness there is in communion 
with God. Here is where the truly infallible joy and 
consolation is found. The sanctified soul, like the dove 
which JSToah sent out of the Ark, finds no place to rest 
but in God. We cannot find it in man, neither in any 
body of men, but in God alone. 

145 



It is our business to live in God, to live in His at- 
mosphere, and the anointing which abideth. 

Sadness flees at His presence. Jesus, the source of all 
our joy, thou hast put joy in my heart. It is not from 
without that we are to seek for joy, it is in the secret of 
the Lord where we find it. It is in the retreat of the 
soul where we have this holy heavenly converse with our 
beloved. What new strength, what holy joy is found 
in communion in the secret closet of our heart, where 
He abides. 

What inspired fervor where the fire of perfect love 
burns ! What new surprises he gives us. But some one 
will say, from all you have written, it seems that holy 
man ought never to be sad. Here you make a mistake, 
but I do say that the greatest joys, the most lasting, come 
from a holy resignation to the divine will and the 
pririlege of having fellowship with Him in His suffer- 
ings. This is something so delightful to the holy soul 
that words and pen fail to describe it. In the depth 
of weakness is strength; in the depth of poverty is 
wealth; in the depth of humility is true exaltation; in 
the saddest and loneliest hours is joy unspeakable, and 
full of glory. It is the glory of sacrifice, and this sac- 
rifice is lost in pure and perfect love. Dishonored by 
men, but honored by God. This sadness is according to 

the Spirit of God. It is not sadness like the world. We 

146 



JOY AND SADNESS. 

do not lose our humanity; we are sad at the death of a 
loved one, like our Divine Lord, who was sad at the 
death of Lazarus, but we rejoice that God is having His 
will. Jesus wept, and the Jews said "Behold how He 
loved Him." Our sadness is turned into joy because we 
know we shall meet again in Heaven. Spiritual sadness 
is good and profitable, and the true children of God 
may oftentimes feel it intensely. 

If we are in sympathy with Jesus, we will be sad over 
the state of the Church. Like Paul at Corinth, like 
Jesus over the multitude, He was moved with compas- 
sion. The sadness which comes over us in seeing the 
state of a lost world, which will penetrate our very souls, 
like what Knox had over Scotland, Jesus over Jeru- 
salem, and like Paul we will wish to be accursed for our 
brethren, which will cause us many times to fall down 
on our faces before God and weep for the salvation of 
precious souls. Like the prophet Jeremiah, when we 
see how little God is glorified, this sadness comes from 
burning desire to see the ministry and to receive the 
pentecostal blessing. Our hearts become inflamed on 
this question, because we know this is the only hope 
for the Church, and sometimes we get homesick to see 
the face of Him whom we love. The delay of being 
with Jesus is intolerable sometimes to a loving heart, but 
soon we shall see Him face to face! The battle will 

147 



"bread from heaven. 

soon be over, but until then let us burn with the fire of 
holy love until we shall behold Him, who will then be 
exultant. 



148 



"Christ- Like Love and Unity." 



CHAPTER X. 

LIKE LOVE AND 

Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell together in unity. The prayer of Jesus was that 
His disciples might be one. Love and unity among 
brethren is essential, in fact there is no unity, no love 
(Agape) like that which cements the hearts of those 
who have abandoned all to God. Brethren in Jesus 
are far more excellent than that of blood, for in many 
instances it has been proven that a father and mother 
will disown their own when they turn to serve the Lord 
with all their heart. The human resembles the human 
affection and in natural appearance is like itself. But the 
divine love produces a likeness, union and fellowship, 
which is like God. You cannot help but be drawn and 
won by a holy character; there is an immediate warmth, 
a Heaven-like kinship, an intuitive language, which 
speaks to the heart informing you that they are one. 
God being the Father, Jesus the Savior, and the Holy 
Spirit the Sanctifier. Holiness of heart brings about 
of itself this oneness, though we may differ in birth, in 
education, in church Polity, so that whatever difference 
nature may have made sanctified grace unites, smashes 
down all barriers, and gives us the one burning interest 

151 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

which is the salvation of the sinner, and the sanctifying 
and establishing of the believer. ]STot only do we enjoy 
this blessing of Christ-like unity, bnt unconsciously it 
spreads its fragance to the edification of the sinner, and 
to the glory of God. There is nothing that can hinder 
the onward march of holiness as long as we show forth 
in our lives practically the spirit of this Christ-like love 
for one another. In no one point do Protestants 
lack more than in this Christ-like love and forbearance 
with those who have no other motive at heart than the 
salvation of souls and the sanctification of the church. 
What a draw, what a charm, what an awaking! There 
would be thousands of awakened souls if they would see 
manifest in us as Protestant Christians this blessed fel- 
lowship, this union for which Jesus Himself prayed. 
Concord among brethren is precious in the sight of God. 
Jesus Himself reduced the ten commandments to two — 
to love God with all the heart, all the soul, all the mind 
and all the strength. This He declared is the first and 
great commandment, but the second is like the former, it 
is to love our brethren like ourselves. This is the origin 
of true brotherly affection. x\ll other brotherhoods 
without this divine love are failures. Union of heart 
and mind is the effect of perfect love. Its property is 
to join, to cement together. It attracts and brings to- 
gether those which had been before so widely apart from 

152 



CHRIST-UKE I.OVK AND UNITY. 

one another. Many become one; it prompts me to desire 
for another that which I desire for myself; it enables 
me to look on my brother as my second self. On reflec- 
tion on the two commandments of our divine Lord, for 
after He gives us the first commandment, which is to 
love God, He presently adds that the second is like 
unto the first, which is to love our neighbor. Here the 
anointed eye can see the extreme goodness of our blessed 
Lord, who notwithstanding the infinite difference and 
distance there was between God and man, would by 
a divine omnipotence instantaneously purge the heart 
of the Old Adam that we might so love one another 
with the self same love which we love Him. "H ye 
love Me, feed My lambs; feed My sheep." Not pound 
them, as if He would say, if ye love Me, love Mine, and 
then I shall know whether ye love Me or not Again 
He says, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
love another. As Jesus loves us purely, for His Father, 
so we will love each other purely for God. The longer 
I live in this life, hid with Christ in God, the more I 
see the necessity of this blessed fraternal love and unity. 
Getting back to pentecost, to the belief of a real Hell, a 
real Heaven, a real judgment, the awfulness of sin and a 
complete Savior who not only can save the penitent sin- 
ner, but entirely sanctify the consecrated believer, which 
is the only remedy to bring about this holy fellowship. 

153 



"bread from heaven. 

Oh, if the professing church of God would spend as much 
time and interest and brain and brawn in bringing about 
this brotherly love, as is spent in logical, philosophical 
and theological discussions, which to a great measure 
has brought nothing but division, hate and separation, 
what multitudes there would be brought to Jesus, what 
crowded altars we would witness, what congregations 
would gather to our temples, what shouts of victory 
would go up from the church militant, uniting with the 
church triumphant in the thousands, nay, millions of 
souls which would be swept into the kingdom of God. 
Human love is founded on flesh and blood, upon the 
consideration of interest and pleasure. It is very 
ancient; it is as old as the world; it is that love which is 
practiced by the saved as well as the unsaved, and which 
is equally among all classes of men. Like begets like; 
everyone loves its own kind; so you will see two drunk- 
ards going together, two burglars going together, two 
worldlings going together, two Catholics going together; 
Franciscans love Franciscans; Dominicans love Domini- 
cans; Carmellites love Carmellites; Free Masons love 
Free Masons; Hibernians love Hibernians; Presbyte- 
rians love Presbyterians; Baptists love "Baptists; Epis- 
copalians love Episcopalians; Methodist Episcopals love 
Methodist Episcopals; Free Methodists will love Free 
Methodists; "Wesleyans will love Wesleyans; Salvation- 

154 



ists love Salvationists; Volunteers love the members 
of the Volunteer movement; Comeouters will love 
Comeouters; and so I might enumerate, taking in the 
different nationalities, but the divine love which Christ 
imparts in our regeneration, and which is perfected in 
us in our entire sanctification, smashes down all these 
barriers and crumbles these walls or partitions between 
God's people to the dust. This is spiritual, superhuman, 
supernatural, unearthly, heavenly, God-like, divine love, 
which enables us to love one another in and for God. 
Theologians may tell us from the effects of reason that 
it is a theological virtue, but inwrought experience 
teaches us that it is a new commandment which here 
and now may be enjoyed by every true and regenerated 
and sanctified soul. Jesus Himself teaches it in the 
words of John. "These things I command you, that 
ye love one another. ,, (John 15: 17.) By this we see 
how much our divine Lord desires it to be deeply rooted 
in our hearts. "For he that loveth another hath fulfilled 
the law. ,, (Komans 13: 8.) John, the beloved disciple, 
imbibed this from the very bosom of our blessed Master. 
His whole epistle is almost devoted to nothing else but 
love. "When we accomplish this love to our brethren, 
we do welL This is the distinct badge by which we 
are known. "By this shall all men know that we are 
His disciples, if we love one another." Hear Him in 

155 



His prayer, that wonderful prayer on intercession. "I 
pray not only for them, but for those also which shall 
believe in Me." By their help and ministry, I beg of 
you that they become one, and as you, My Father, 
art in Me, and as I am in you, so they may also be one 
in us. How the divine presence of God is felt, when 
a number of such should gather together in prayer. What 
earnest prayer, faith, love, victory is bound to be mani- 
fest. Oh, that above all things we might be led to see 
that perfect love is the only thing which makes us a 
unit. Above all things let us have fervent love among 
ourselves. Hence we see the great importance of hav- 
ing this love and oneness which will do more to convince 
the world that we are His than the most eloquent preach- 
ing. Close observation has taught us that there is noth- 
ing so necessary in the church of God than this Christ- 
like love for one another, for what church can ever 
hold together without love and unity? A house against 
itself is bound to crumble and fall, and a church without 
this love and unity will become a hell, and its ministers 
and members demons. A church united in perfect love 
is a true picture of what Heaven will be, for the end 
of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, a good 
conscience and faith without hypocrisy. Nothing else 
will convince the world that we are His true represen- 
tatives. The animal world by instinct, take for instance 

156 



"CHRIST-LIKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

the bee to whom nature has given an admirable instinct 
for union and order; even among the most savage beasts, 
such as wolves, lions, etc. The same principle prompts 
them to self -conservation. By a sort of knowledge they 
are aware that division will mean their destruction. See 
how the arch-enemy of souls with his hosts of excarnate 
and incarnate followers unite together to sow discord 
among the children of God. He is well aware that 
when he gets us divided, down we go and become his 
easy prey. Hence the need of the inwrought blessing 
of perfect love, for there is nothing more pernicious, 
more damaging, more damning, than discord and dis- 
union among brethren. I am certain from experience, 
that there is no one thing that has driven good men 
from us, and not only from us but from God, than the 
lack of this true, fraternal love. This love draws to- 
gether and amalgamates, looks over each others mis- 
takes, and deals with each other as we would like others 
to deal with us. This divine love and fellowship is the 
only thing which will make the church like a paradise, 
and bring to many a troubled soul peace and tranquillity, 
which is like Heaven. Nothing resembles more the 
heavenly Jerusalem, than a church perfectly united by 
divine love. The Holy Spirit is truly manifest among 
them, the place they assemble together is none other 
than the house of God, the gate of Heaven. Let us 

157 



now speak of the matter more particularly. We, in the 
church militant, are soldiers; the church is a great batal- 
lion which God has ordained to capture the world for 
Jesus, which was lost by the first Adam. We are the 
individuals who are to engage in this holy war against 
the world, the flesh and the devil, in a word, against sin. 
Wo are to plunge to the very mouth of hell and snatch 
souls for God and Heaven. He then who will fight 
the good fight of faith under the standard of the cross, 
and enroll himself among God's warriors in the church 
for which Jesus Christ died to sanctify must abound 
in love, and this he cannot do until he dies out to every 
interest for the salvation of souls and the sanctification 
of God's saints and obtain from God Himself the bless- 
ing of perfect love. How many times the church of 
God has been defeated, because of this lack of love and 
unity among her brethren. If we are to fight and con- 
quer the enemies of the cross of Christ, if we are to be 
triumphant in every place, we must be one, and being 
one we can surmount all obtacles and banish every fear, 
and as the word of. God teaches, we would be terrible 
as an army with banners. It would never be possible 
for the enemy to defeat us, but when disunited, we are 
bound to be scattered, nay conquered. In the Regular 
Army an officer informed me that in our late Spanish- 
American war there was nothing which caused fear to 

L58 



• ' christ-like: love and unity. 

our enemies more than the love, loyalty and unity of 
our soldiers. The love, the patriotism for one another 
could not be excelled. He said, "you know that soldiers 
who are not united in time of war, in place of going to 
victory go to butchery," and he declared to me that 
there is nothing enforced in military regulations so much 
as unity. This, he declared, made us invincible, and not 
only secured the general welfare, but the individual 
good. We may say the same of brethren who are 
Christian soldiers. If we live in the spirit of perfect 
love with one another, if we assist instead of condemn, 
if we will march well together, if we are to gain the 
victory, if we are to overcome the powers of darkness 
and spiritual wickedness in high places, we must have 
perfect love, or ultimately be ruined. "A brother 
offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and 
their contentions are like the bars of a castle." (Proverbs 
18: 19.) It is hard to break a triple cord; all the 
little threads of which a cross bow is made, are very 
weak of themselves if taken one by one, yet when they 
are united and interlaced one with another, they are 
able to bend a bow of steel. Even so will the holy 
brethren be strong, for perfect love will be the bond 
which binds them. Perfect love watches and takes care 
to allow nothing to mar this peaceful union. Where 
there is an ecclesiastical intrigue and caballing among 

J59 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

us, we shall surely be defeated. Death and life are in 
the power of the tongue, and "They that love it, shall 
eat the fruit thereof." (Proverbs 18: 21.) Soldiers 
destined to fight their enemy, if they turn their arms 
against one another, instead of overcoming, they will 
infallibly destroy themelves just as happened to Israel; 
"Because their heart was divided, He broke down their 
altars." (Hosea 10: 2.) The Apostle Paul tells us, 
"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that 
ye be not consumed one of another." (Gal. 5: 15.) We 
have nothing to fear from the world, no matter what 
persecutions may come, they will never be able to hurt 
us if we have perfect love, peace and quietness among 
ourselves. "What can there be from without which can 
contristate, trouble you if you are holy within, and 
enjoy true Christ-like love. Nothing can harm you, but 
what desolation, what havoc, has come to us from the 
need of this real blessed life of holy fellowship and 
Christ-like brotherly affection. As long as we are living 
in blessed communion with God, and perfect union with 
one another, all contradictions from without contribute 
to advance us in the sanctified life. Thus, when the 
early Apostolic Christians were persecuted, and at the 
hands of their tyrants were mocked at, for Jesus' sake, 
in place of wounding Christianity, it only helped to 
propagate the glorious truths for which they died, and 

160 



' CHRIST-LIKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

watered the earth, to make it produce fruit in greater 
abundance. Oh, the need there is for holy, true, un- 
flinching, uncompromising, loyal, loving companionship. 
The second reason why we should have this perfect 
love and union is, because our vocation in life prevents 
us from coming in close contact with one another. Hav- 
ing obeyed the divine command, we are on the go-for- 
ward line into all the world, or to that part of it, which 
is committed to our care to preach the gospel to every 
creature. We are among deists and skeptics and infidels 
and Godless professors, in whose company there is no 
fellowship, no brotherly kindness, no heaven-like kin- 
ship. Oh, how we need, as brethren, to close our ear to 
the slanderer in order that when we come together we 
may embrace and love and cheer one another, rather 
than look upon one another with suspicion, so that we 
would look upon one another not as strangers, but as 
yoke fellows, true brethren in the Lord Jesus. The 
second obstacle is that we ought not to worship our learn- 
ing, advance in learning with this perfect love in our 
hearts, is a blessing, but of itself, unless it is abandoned 
to the Holy Ghost, will only puff up, filling you with 
an esteem for yourself and a contempt for others who 
have had less advantages. Is it not a fact, that while 
we ought to put no premium on ignorance that the un- 
learned and ignorant are more devoted, more real, and 

161 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

believe God with, a greater simplicity than philosophers 
and eminent scholarly divines? So that learning with- 
out perfect love will impede union and Christ-like love 
among brethren. The third difficulty is that the very 
persons about whom we have been speaking, look upon 
themselves as individuals of merit, because they are 
endowed with talent, seek the familiarity of the rich 
worldlings, spend their times in useless conversations, 
feast sumptuously at the tables of the wealthy, look 
down upon the poorer brethren, and fail to dispense the 
bread of life to the common people. Hence arise partic- 
ularities, clans, exemptions, privileges and desire for 
distinction to be made between themselves and others, 
all which prevent Christ-like union and Christ-like love 
for our fellows, for without the spirit of Christ, natural 
and acquired abilities will carry us away into vain-glory 
and contempt of our brethren who may be inferior 
on these lines, a desire to be preferred before them, and 
a presumptuous belief that we ought to have some pref- 
erence. How different the teachings of our divine Lord, 
in honor preferring one another. He that is greatest, 
let him be the least; he that humbleth himself, let 
him be exalted. He came not to be ministered to, 
but to minister. Paul had got there in his experience, 
when he said, "I am the less of the least of all saints." 
Without the spirit of perfect love, we will court the 

162 



" CHRIST-LIKE LOVK AND UNITY." 

world, the favor of rich ungodly men, become intimate 
with these men, because of their money, which intro- 
duces jealousy and envy among brethren. How true 
it is that the more distinguished our qualifications are, 
without the spirit of our loving Lord, these endowments 
will only in the end produce scandal; but learning, when 
it is accompanied with Christ-like humility and perfect 
love to God and man will seek nothing but Jesus Christ 
and His glory, and God can then use it as a great power 
to attract others to Jesus, it will be the means of bring- 
ing peace to many hearts. 



163 



Christ-Like Love and Unity. 

Continued. 



CHAPTER XL 

" christ-like love and unity." (Continued.) 

Reasons why we should love one another. The uni- 
versal test of Christian characters, for if God so loved 
us with Divine love, and if we love our brethren with 
Divine love, God abideth in us and His love is perfected 
in us. We see here the excellency of this perfect love, 
and the value that God Himself places on it. The 
greatest commandment is love, the love of God and the 
love of the brethren go together. They cannot be sepa- 
rated; they are inseparable. We love without dissimu- 
lation, without hypocrisy; the one can never subsist 
without the other. We cannot love God without loving 
our brother, because the motives we have for loving our 
brother is God. If we love one another God dwells in 
us. He that loves God must love his brother also; as 
light cannot help from shining, so Divine love cannot 
keep from loving. As the magnet is drawn to the pole, 
so it is the very nature of love to be drawn out after its 
brother. Hence, if we do not love one another, the love 
of the Father is not in us. John Fisher, a devoted and 
heroic preacher of the gospel, imprisoned in a tower in 
London, prayed to God to lead him to a passage of Scrip- 
ture as they were leading him to the scaffold to be exe- 

167 



cuted. His eyes lit on this passage of Scripture, "Love 
one another." Closing the book, he cried out, "that is 
enough for time and eternity." If the President of the 
United States loved his subjects so as to interpose him- 
self between all blows and insults which should be aimed 
at them, so that they could not hurt his subjects, this 
truly would be a great manifestation of his love. This 
is what God does. You cannot hurt, or insult, or in- 
jure, or grieve your brother, but Jesus always inter- 
poses Himself; so that when you say or do anything to 
your brother, you do it to Jesus Himself. "Whosoever 
shall touch you," says our Lord, "touches me in the 
apple of My eye." So that when we wilfully offend our 
brother, we offend God, and by loving our brother, we 
love God. \Ye see from this that the love of God and 
the love of our brother go hand in hand, and are in- 
cluded one in the other, and can never be divided, be- 
cause the obligation we have to love the one necessarily 
implies the obligation to love the other. Third Eeason. 
We ought not only to love in word, but in deed, 
that it is to be a fruitful and profitable love. This 
Divine love is imparted in our regeneration, and we 
are delivered from all antagonisms to it, when we are 
entirely sanctified. If we love not with Divine love, 
we abide in death. It surpasses words and gets into 
very deeds. If God so loved us in a divine and extra- 

168 



' ' CHRIST-UKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

ordinary manner, we ought surely to love one another, 
for the love you manifest to your brother is really shown 
to God. He receives it as unto Himself. "Verily I say 
unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least 
of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." "Matt. 
25: 40.) This we can never do in the full sense until 
the old Adam is entirely eliminated. These brethren 
are allied to Jesus Christ, tabernacles of the very God, 
and we ought to love them with the Divine love, which 
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. We 
see the union there is in the human body, how each 
member helps the other, the eyes direct the feet, the 
hands defend the head, and all jointly together succor 
the weaker part. Experience teaches us that when we 
eat some food there is a distribution of nourishment to 
each part of the body, each member receives as much as 
is necessary. You will also find the sympathy among the 
members. You let your foot tread upon a thorn; what is 
more remote from the eyes than the feet? By situation 
it is very far, but it is very nigh by the mutual corre- 
spondence with all the rest of the members. As soon 
as the foot is pricked with a thorn, the eyes go to find 
it out, the body stands to facilitate with its approach. 
The tongue asks where it is, and the hands endeavor 
to pull it out, yet the eyes, the hands, the body, and the 
tongue all are well. Nothing ails them, and the foot 

169 



itself is wounded in one place. Nevertheless all sympa- 
thize and feel for the member that is wounded. See 
then, the necessity of having the Divine love for each 
member of Christ's body, His Church. This Divine 
love will teach us to take care of our brethren as we do 
for ourselves. We will rejoice as much for their good 
fortune as if it were our own, and we will feel as much 
for their misfortune and sufferings as for our own. Re- 
joice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who 
weep. We are sorry at their faults, and we rejoice at 
the grace and favors they receive from God. The 
Apostle Paul informs us in the 12th chapter of 1 Co- 
rinthians of the diversities of gifts, and on the other 
hand the strict union, mutual correspondence, and sat- 
isfaction which one member takes in the distinct use of 
its employment. It ought to be the same in the Church 
of God, one as the hand, another the eye, etc. The 
head cannot say it does not stand in need of the hand, 
and the eyes cannot say they do not stand in need of the 
feet, but each member in the Church of God stands in 
need of each other. This is the Divine teaching of the 
Word, this is the Divine model which the words of the 
Apostle Paul teaches us of true Christ-like love, and 
this is the key to solve the problem of our love to one 
another. This will teach us to be Catholic enough not 
to un-Christianize those brethren who may be gifted 

170 



" CHRIST-LIKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

above us. It will enable us to live in holy humility, to 
be kind and always ready to oblige one another, teach- 
ing us to accommodate ourselves to their several needs. 
See what a sublime lesson Jesus teaches at the last sup- 
per, when He, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords 
showed to us that lesson of humility and love by wash- 
ing the feet of His disciples. Love is meek, patient, 
envies not, bears, endures, is long suffering, bears the 
toil and sweat of the day, is gentle in the home, prac- 
tical in the life, is non-resistant, never fights back, is self- 
governing; it is that ocean of Divine love which comes 
from the very heart of God Himself. This is the love 
against which there can be no law. It has holy ambi- 
tions, still it is never puffed up; it has holy joy, which 
is subordinate to Divine love; it has holy sorrow, still 
it is always tranquil and quiet before God. It is often 
perplexed, but never in despair. It is often cramped 
and cooped up in a tight place, and still there is a way 
open for escape. Is patient with our brethren, for without 
holy patience with one another we can never have 
Christ-like unity, and no matter how advanced we may 
be in the Divine life, we must remember that we are 
not angels, but men, and though blameless, we are every 
one of us full of faults, so that we owe our brethren the 
gracious virtue of patience. In like manner, of our- 
selves, we are very weak and infirm, and are still on pro- 

171 



bation, and are exposed to the attacks of Satan, and that 
while on probation we are liable to fall from the highest 
state of Grace. Therefore, we need the assistance, and 
not the condemnation and slander of others. According 
to the Apostle Paul, we bear one another's burdens, and 
so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6: 2.) While in 
school one of our professors related an instance, which 
has made a deep impression on my mind on this burden- 
bearing of one another. He informed us the naturalists 
report that when stags would pass over an arm of the 
sea to seek fresh pasture on any island, they would 
observe this order. Their horns being very heavy, with 
which their heads are charged, they put themselves in 
line, one after the other, and each one to help the other 
rests his head on the one going before him, so they all 
swim after this manner without any fatigue at all, except 
the first one, which carries his head in the air, and 
willingly bears the burdens for the rest of his com- 
panions. But that this one alone may not feel all the 
burden, as soon as he begins to be weary passes from 
being the first, and becomes the last of all. Thus they 
change places till they get to the other side. Divine 
love in our hearts teaches us to do likewise. Reciprocally 
assist and solace one another, and in no way can we 
wound this love more than in throwing the entire 

burden on another. The more we bear one another's 

172 



CHRIST-UKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

faults, their mistakes and infirmities, the more we will 
develop in the science of the Saints. "We will learn to 
walk within all lowliness and meekness, with long suffer- 
ing, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep 
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4: 
2, 3.) Love suffers long; bears all things. This suffering 
from your brethren will wonderfully aid you to develop 
in a life of sweetness, and broad catholicity. See the love 
a mother has for her child, though the child has a mul- 
titude of faults. See the love of that patient wife over 
the faults of her husband. Him she nurses, cares for, 
prays for, and at last in the mighty faith, brings him 
to the cross. Perfect love in the heart enables us to bear 
with all the weakness and mistakes and infirmities of 
our brethren. It will enable those in authority to see 
that their authority is given by the Lord for edification 
and not for destruction. (2 Cor. 10: 8.) Mutual for- 
bearance is a profitable way to illustrate pure and per- 
fect love. It will take all the grace for you and I to bear 
with the faults of sanctified people, but God's grace is 
sufficient. Our late sainted Dr. S. A. Keen, informs 
us that Charles Spurgeon was once riding along the 
highway laughing at the top of his voice. A friend 
meeting him, said, "Why are you laughing so?" "O," 
said Mr. Spurgeon, "I was just thinking about 'My grace 
is sufficient,' how big grace is and how little I am, and 

173 



"BREAD FROM HKAVEN." 

I could but laugh outright for joy." The entire Chris- 
tian life is founded on love. This is how we know we 
have passed from death unto life, because we know that 
we love the brethren, and the perfecting of this love is 
the fulfillment of the law. This love is not puffed up. 
It brings Christ-like friendship, knows not what pride is. 
We are never ashamed to salute a friend; it rather gives 
us joy to do so. Among friends there is no standing on 
ceremony; it has more frankness, simplicity and equality 
in its manner. Love and majesty do not agree very 
well together, do not live under the same roof. The 
elevation of a throne does not very easily stoop or accom- 
modate itself to friendship, and whosoever wishes to 
maintain true friendship must be humble himself and 
put himself on an equality with his friends. He must 
make him another self. It is in this manner that God 
makes Himself known to us. He debased Himself so 
much as to humble Himself to become man, and He 
declared, "I call you not servants, for the servant 
knoweth not what his lord doeth, but I have called you 
My friends" (John 15: 15), revealing to us the equality 
between Himself and us. O, what an excess of love. 
What an equality there is in that word "friend." He 
whose majesty is infinite makes Himself so familiar with 
us and loves us with so much tenderness that instead of 
treating us as servants, opens to us the title of friends. 

i74 



" CHRIST-LIKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

Where there is the true spirit of perfect love, there is 
an equality. Perfect love shows forth to one another 
the true spirit of humility, equality, and simplicity. It 
always and everywhere prefers others before itself. It 
yields to one another, loves to serve, and when placed 
in authority never domineers. O, that we might set 
more value on Christ-like equality and Heavenly sim- 
plicity. Love is not envious. On the contrary, he who 
has perfect love for his brethren, wishes him as good a 
place as himself, and rejoices as much in his preferment 
as at his own. Love seeks not its own, seeks not to 
feather its own nest, does not pull wires in cabinets, 
conferences, synods, or assemblies. It always makes the 
advantages of another its own. Nothing is more con- 
trary to the spirit of Jesus. The union among our- 
selves and selfishness looking out for our own welfare, 
our own ease, our own comfort at the expense of 
others. Selfishness is a mortal enemy to pure and 
perfect love and Christ-like union among brethren. It 
is the plague almost everywhere. It infects and ruins 
true and holy fellowship. It is the enemy of holy union 
among our brethren. It wraps itself wholly within 
itself, and introduces division everywhere, and where- 
ever self-love is prominent there is bound to be a quar- 
rel. Self-love finds nothing to unite itself to, but per- 
fect love finds all of one heart and soul. It rejoices not 

J 75 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

at the downfall of a brother, but on the contrary re- 
joices at the prosperity of others, and the greater this 
perfect love, the greater joy will be manifested. It says 
to our brother, "Go on, increase in virtue, develop in 
the deep things of God. Love secret prayer and the 
study of the Scriptures. Be as useful and as happy as 
you can be. Become a teacher and a benediction to the 
Church. I will uphold you, encourage you, press you 
on, stand by you. I will not be jealous of your success, 
but I will rejoice in the blessed fact that all you do and 
say and be is for the glory of God and the salvation of 
the world. Your success is mine. I take pleasure in 
that you are preferred before me. O, hallelujah! 
When a man enters into partnership, into commonship 
with Jesus and his brethren the success of his brother so 
far from bringing him sorrow, brings him joy, because 
all goes to the common stock. Having been washed 
in the precious blood, and set on fire with the second 
blessing love-fire of Pentecost, he will rejoice in the 
virtue, God-likeness, good qualities, advancement, suc- 
cess of his brethren, because all turn to the advantage 
of the Church of Jesus Christ and the glory of God. 
That we ought under all circumstances to speak well of 
one another. The love we entertain for one another 
will not only be interior, but will also be manifest in 
our exterior actions. Whenever we see our brother in 

176 



any necessity, we will never shut up our bowels of 
mercy against him. True love finds out the hungry, and 
thirsty, and naked, and sick, and imprisoned. Know- 
ing that what we do to the least of these our brethren 
we do to Jesus. Fire that is not supplied with fuel will 
soon be extinguished, and love that is not made mani- 
fest to others will soon smoulder, and go out We know 
the love of Jesus, because He gave His life for us, and 
love to our brethren is only known when we give our 
lives for them. But how can it be said that we give 
our lives for them if we do not speak well of one 
another? There is not a greater evil than the tongue. 
By our words we are judged. One of the chief things 
that the law of love requires of us, and which will aid 
to preserve it is to have a high esteem of one another. 
It is upon this foundation that the magnificent building 
of true Christ-like brotherhood is raised. This love is 
not a blind passion that comes and goes with every whim 
and fancy and opinion, that changes according to our 
petty likes and dislikes, nor a love or an effect which 
comes and goes with circumstances. No, no, this love 
is something more. It is more heavenly, more God- 
like. It is a love from the moral nature combined with 
common sense and sound reason, which has been made 
Godlike by the mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
It is that love which is truly begotten of God. It is not 

*77 



' BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' 

earthly, rather heavenly. In all purity, you love the 
elder as a father, young men as brethren, the elder 
women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters. 
It is the love of esteem, of preferment to one's self, 
which springs from the very divine love we have of 
God, and which prompts us in esteeming God above 
everything else. 



178 



"Christ- Like Love and Unity." 

Continued. 



CHAPTER XII. 

11 christ- like love and unity." (Continued.) 

We esteem our brother as one belonging to God, and 
this esteem which we have for our brother moves us to 
honor and respect him, and to do and to say of him as 
this divine love requires of us, and as esteem develops 
in us even so our love for them will become intensely 
practical. Everything is done in lowliness, esteeming 
each other better than ourselves, being of one accord, 
having the same mind, we look not on our own things, 
but look everyone of us on the things of others. This 
love has no hypocrisy; it is kindly affectionate towards 
another, with brotherly love preferring one another, 
and while it hates unholy affinities, it does not wait till 
another begins, but unconsciously from a loving heart 
advances towards our brethren. It manifests itself by 
always speaking well of them, and when speaking to 
others shows forth the esteem and honor we have for 
them. One of the things which has won me closely to 
some has been that I have never heard them speak ill 
of their brethren, but they watch every point of good- 
ness to commend to others. I have seen this so beauti- 
fully exemplified in that hero of the cross, Rev. Joseph 
H. Smith. There is nothing which gives more confi- 

181 



dence than to know that we are loved by our brethren, 
and that our brethren have a good opinion of us and 
speak well of us on all occasions. Let you just think 
for a moment what satisfaction it gave you when you 
were informed some one spoke kindly of you. How you 
watched the first opportunity to reciprocate the same. 
No one can tell the amount of good kindness does. How 
true it is that if we will be loved we must love. Noth- 
ing can recommend love but love itself. Christ-like 
holiness produces good samples. What a depth there 
is in the words of Jesus, "Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matt. 7: 
12.) Would you like others to do good to you? Do 
so to them. Do you wish to be sympathized with in 
time of trouble and misunderstanding with your fel- 
lows? If so, sympathize with others. Would you like 
to be praised? I do not mean flattery, for that is born 
in hell. I mean praise, for God loves to be praised; then 
commence to praise the good in others and give up your 
fault finding. Would you be loved? Love with Divine 
love. Would you like others to yield to you? Be ye 
the first to yield to them. Would you like to be edified? 
Then begin to edify others. Would you love to be 
comforted? Then comfort the comfortless. The least 
word of unkindness said against a brother, directly or 
indirectly, may be the occasion of scandal, which the 

182 



devil will make use of to damn immortal souls. Doubt- 
less your brother has his defects, but he has some good 
qualities, which you cannot help but admire, and which 
are commendable in him. He who has no faults and 
makes no mistakes, let him cast the first stone. Love 
is like the bee which lights upon the flower, not minding 
the thorns that surround them. Let us not follow the 
example of the beetle, which lights on nothing but the 
ordure. Perfect love abstains from stating things which 
grieve our brethren. Holy men never speak ill of one 
another. When we hear of things which it may not be 
possible for us to prevent, we never repeat them to a 
third person, for this tends to wound, and in many in- 
stances sows discord. There is nothing so pernicious to 
the word of God than evil speaking, and it woud edify 
us all to read Mr. Wesley's sermon on that subject. 
Solomon tells us there are six things the Lord hates, but 
the seventh is an abomination. A proud look, a lying 
tongue, hands which shed innocent blood, a heart that 
deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that are swift to run 
into mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he 
that soweth discord among brethren. It is a sad fact 
that there is an amount of this done. God hates it 
The whisperers, the tale-bearer defiles his own soul, and 
tale-bearing is hated by all. Perfect love will end 
gossipers. They are legion in a church, and some pro- 

183 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

fessors of perfect love are deeply tainted with it. In 
your holy life give no one the right to add your name 
to theirs on the line of gossip, for there is no quality so 
unworthy any one who professes perfect love, than 
gossip. What is more dangerous to unity than one of 
a sedicious spirit, who is good for nothing else than to 
create disturbance among brethren, and who thus en- 
gages himself with an employment which belongs to 
the devil, that father of discord and division. Bear in 
mind that it is not necessary what you gossip about be 
of any consequence. Sometime a mere trifle is sufficient 
to do it. TVe must, therefore, so live with God as to be 
careful about telling anything to any one which will 
cause misunderstanding, pain, and perhaps separation be- 
tween brethren. Look out for dropping words about an- 
other brother's sermon, or prayers, or mannerisms, or 
peculiarities in the pulpit, or making light of a brother's 
sanctified wit. By so doing we will grieve the Holy 
Spirit, lessen the brother's influence, and be the instru- 
ment of damning souls. You may think you have done 
no harm, but God only knows the amount of bitterness 
and sorrow of heart you may have caused your brother. 
God help us as sanctified people to be watchful on this 
point. "The words of a tale-bearer are as wounds, and 
they go down into the innermost parts of the belly." 
(Prov. 26: 22.) The Holy Spirit will reveal to you that 

184 



CHRIST-UKE LOVE AND UNITY." 

one of the things which conduce to the preservation 
of Christian unity and love among brethren is to speak 
always kind of them, and to put the best construction 
on their actions. A loving word multiplies friends, and 
appeases enemies, "but grievous words stir up anger." 
(Prov. 15: 1.) For being all of us human, unkind 
words hurt our feelings, and when the mind is once in- 
censed, we do not look upon our brother as we did be- 
fore, but presently find something blamable in him, 
which often does not stop there, by blaming him in our 
hearts only, but goes further and speaks ill of him. It 
is then very necessary that we have perfect love in 
order that our conversation may be seasoned with Christ- 
like salt and heaven inwrought sweetness. A holy and 
prudent man renders himself amiable by his words. 
Our eyes ought not to be evil because others are good. 
For a lesson of discrimination the Holy Spirit will teach 
you as you progress in this life of holiness, you will 
judge of your neighbor as of yourself. By consulting 
your own heart you will soon find out that you do not 
like to be spoken coldly on, or to be spoken sharply to, 
or to be commanded in a haughty or imperious manner, 
or to be written to by superiors in a domineering style, 
and if we do not like these things to be done to us, we 
will not do them to others ; we will avoid speaking hasty 
words by which others may be offended. And when 

#5 



' BREAD FROM HEAVEN. ' ' 

we consider ourselves the least of all, we will never 
speak otherwise than kind, loving, and in the spirit of 
Jesus, for perhaps the cause why we are so unkind and 
unloving is because we think ourselves better than the 
individual we speak to. Perfect love keeps us in an 
humble state, for we learn in the college of Jesus the 
language we ought to use, and the manner in which 
we ought to address others. "We will avoid disputes 
and contentions among our brethren, because it is con- 
trary to the spirit and law of love. "We will not strive 
about words to no profit to the subverting of them that 
hear. We let our yielding be known unto all men; we 
will not contradict each other. The spirit of contra- 
diction is a very bad one, though the thing in question 
is of little consequence. 

There is nothing that we are taught so much in this 
life of holiness, and there is nothing that will help the 
growth and strength of the Church of God, as loving 
one another and being united. Enemies of the cross of 
Christ, false friends and avowed enemies of the true 
work of God will always be in for separation. But the 
more intimate we become with Jesus and His "Word, the 
more we become enthusiastic with the conviction that 
His children are being united. 

"We will be inspired with the same God-like principles 
which are established upon the authority of the inspired 

186 



1 ' CHRIST-UKE I,OVE) AND UNITY.' 

Scriptures, and at the same time we will give each in- 
dividual liberty to adapt his methods to the character 
and habits of the people God may send them to. We 
will be one family in heaven and earth, one in conviction 
and in affection. 

If we are to be one in heaven, doubtless we are to be 
one in earth, as Christ and the Father are one. 

What a union, how can we illustrate it? The union 
of the members of one family is often very intimate, 
but it falls infinitely below the union indicated here, 
we look at what that union must be, and then at the 
wonderful variety of temperaments among the Lord's 
ministers — the bold, the weak, the patient, the sharp, 
the reserved, the gabblers, the straight, the crooked, 
we see the small minded prejudices of race and cast, we 
remember the squabbles, backbiting, and endless dis- 
cords among those whom we have met, we ask how can 
all these sores be purged, these wounds healed, the dis- 
similarities be bridged over? It is impossible, humanly 
speaking, no amount of social, religious or secular meet- 
ings seemingly can bring it about, but the secret is found 
in the valuable prayer of our divine Lord, just about to 
shed His blood to make it gloriously possible, viz. : "That 
they also may lie one in us." Here is the unity of Chris- 
tian ministers. In seeking to illustrate this point, I am 
reminded of a scene in my boyhood days. I am in the 

187 



"bread from heaven." 

village smithy at eventide, without is the dark night. 
The sturdy smith with his leathern apron girt, stands 
with his left hand upon the handle of the big bellows 
that produces the draught for the forge. The flame 
shoots its forked tongue up into the sooty recesses of the 
old chimney, each tongue of fire expends its energy in 
an attempt to reach a still higher altitude in the rich 
rudy glow that lights up the dingy corners of the smithy. 
I see on the floor two bits of iron, hard and cold. They 
clank together and dent each other as the smith picks 
them up roughly. But see, he thrusts them right into 
the burning mass before him. Again he pulls the big 
handle up and down, again the responsive flames reach 
higher, sparks are emitted, flakes of hot metal fly about 
in every direction like miniature comets. Then out 
comes the two pieces of iron at white heat, glowing with 
fiery baptism they have received. Now the whirling 
hammers come into play; din, din, clink, clank, sound 
the speedy blows, and lo! the two hard dented pieces 
are one. It is the fire that does it, and it is only as we, 
Christian ministers of the Lord Jesus, are plunged into 
the great central fire that we are baptized with Jesus' 
fiery baptism that we can become with each other as 
Christ and His Father are one. 

How essential this unity in these days of doubt, when 
lack of faith in God is everywhere, when multitudes 

i83 



' ' CHRIST- LIKE LOVE AND UNITY. ' ' 

who profess some Christian creed disbelieve in the Judg- 
ment Day, in heaven, or hell, or a personal devil, or a 
personal Holy Ghost, or the power of the cleansing 
blood to cleanse from all sin, Unitarianism, Idolatry, 
Universalism, Romanism, Atheism and Fatalism is 
everywhere, both in and out of the pulpit How essen- 
tial it is then that we, as possessors of perfect love, be 
one family irrespective of our education, nationality and 
denomination, we are to be one spirit, what is more 
blessed than to see a multitude of men and women, 
though they were brought up Methodists, Presbyterians, 
Congregationalists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Romanists, 
white and black, to find that they have forgotten all 
jealousies and raileries resulting from their different 
creeds and nationalities, who have come upon the one 
platform of equality in spirit, purpose and affection, 
who are not in for destruction, but who are in for re- 
storing man to God and the building up of the Church 
in righteousness and true holiness. 



189 



The Bond of Perfection. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 

As we develop in the life of perfect love, we realize 
more and more the importance and meaning and depth 
of simple words, such as holiness, love, light, power, 
which is original only with God. The weight of one 
simple passage and sometimes one simple word of Scrip- 
ture will overwhelm our minds and fill our hearts with 
rapturous joy. 

If we were but intellectual creatures, we might glory 
in the intellectual, but we are the counterpart of God, 
and our souls can never be satisfied except in God's right- 
eousness and in the enjoyment of His life. We are 
only satisfied when feasting on Him, the bread sent 
down from Heaven; as God's glory is in man, so man's 
only true glory and satisfaction is in God. Jesus is love 
incarnate, truth incarnate. This gracious truth is won- 
derful; God is love, and it is our privilege to have our 
home in Him. He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in 
God, and God in Him, and there is nothing that will 
ever bring together the children of God but His love. 
It is the only bond that will ever bind the Christian 
Church, and bring us into the comprehension and fel- 

J93 



lowship of all saints. All other things have failed to 
bring about union, and our mission as holy men is to 
preach and teach and press and live this life of perfect 
love. 

Some consider that it is necessary to have beautiful 
forms and nice ceremonies and elaborate ritual in order 
to bring the children of God together. To say that we 
can do without form and ceremony altogether, is to 
run off into fanaticism. It is essential to have some form, 
some method of conducting divine worship, and perhaps 
a little more reverence in the house of God would be a 
help to us. A good form is almost, if not altogether, 
essential, but formalism of itself will never bring to- 
gether the hearts of God's own children, no matter how 
beautiful the architecture or how ritual or how elaborate 
the ritualistic ceremony, or fine the artistic music which 
our best organized choirs may produce, or how well 
educated the priest or minister may be, all will fail to 
bind the heart without the divine love which is the bond 
of affection. Fine cathedrals, beautifully decorated, ex- 
pensive altars, golden crucifixes, rich tabernacles, costly 
albs, soutans, surplices, birretas, valuable chalices, cer- 
boriums, thermonstrances, philosophical and scientific 
sermons from the history of our holy religion, the most 
beautiful ideals we can present, the most gracious models 

we can hold up, before the eyes of the people, logically 

194 



THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 

or well prepared as our discourses may be, flowing forth 
with eloquence, which spell-bound our hearers, all is 
but sounding brass, without this divine love, which is 
the only bond of perfection. 

This is the immortal song of Paul, crystallized by 
John, and personified in Christ, which is to be shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. This love is 
not merely human, but divine, heaven-born, heaven-im- 
parted, in the soul of him who has abandoned all and 
received by faith this priceless pearl. It soars above the 
science of theology which, after all, is only the product 
of mentalities, and it enters into the school of Christ 
where it advances in the science of the saints. 

Blessed, thrice blessed knowledge of Him who is 
divine love Himself! 

Theoretical. — Good theories are indispensable, they 
are invaluable in anything, and especially in presenting 
the glad tidings of salvation, in order to lead the sinner 
to God and the believer into the exalted life of perfect 
love. But we cannot live in the plan of a house; theo- 
retical salvation will never bind the hearts of men to- 
gether; it is the nut without the kernel, the body without 
the soul; the Christianity without a Christ. 

Some are much better than their theories, while others 
who have good theories give evidence that they lack 
this divine love which alone will bind the broken- 

195 



hearted, and soothe the sorrowing and relieve the dis- 
tressed. The secret to unite, to cement together those 
who may differ from us, is to have this divine love, which 
alone can accomplish this end. Nothing can be more 
disgusting to God and man than to be all theory and 
no practice. The blessed Jesus Himself had compassion 
on thieves and harlots and tax-gatherers, but He seemed 
to manifest no sympathy whatever for theoretical ritu- 
alistic and legalistic Pharisaical religionists who lacked 
this divine love. He uncovered their hollow hypocrisy, 
called them hard names, spoke of them as a generation 
of vipers, and wondered if it were ever possible for the 
mercy of God to reach them, or if they would escape 
the damnation of hell. The reason this bitter antipathy 
of our divine Lord was excited, was not because they had 
not good theories, but it was because they lacked this 
divine love and were but a mere pretense. They had 
a good theory, a good exacting judaizing life, but the 
great essential was absent in not having the divine love 
of God within them. They had a religion and theory, 
and the name of God which they never carried in 
practical life; like many to-day, they traded in the ever- 
lasting hopes and fears which are born in every man's 
breast, in order to gratify their selfish aims and purposes, 
to gain reputation and position to be looked upon as 
successful, to out-beat one another in the building up 

196 



THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 

of their synagogues. They were hypocrites; hence His 
denunciation, His withering scorn. 

Demonstrations. — As we walk close with God in the 
sanctified life, while we will love joy and heaven-sent 
noise, still we will not court demonstration, and when it 
comes we will take our hands off. To deny or in the 
least prevent the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, when 
He shall send special out-pourings from His throne, 
is dangerous. God does manifest Himself at times in 
overwhelming power, completely prostrating some, and 
at times we cannot help bursting out into holy laughter 
and at others times breaking down in holy weeping, 
heavenly melting before God, at other times in blessed 
quietness where we find the unspeakable glory. Blessed 
be God for these hallowed refreshings from the presence 
of the Lord. I trust none of us shall ever exercise 
Priest-craft in tieing up the saints and putting our hands 
upon these heavenly manifestations, when God is pleased 
to send them, which is the privilege of the sons of God. 
But after some years of some close observation, we find 
out that even these manifestations can be imitated by 
Satan and his imps, and experience among men has 
taught us that these demonstrations fail to bring the 
people of God together. 

In traveling up and down this great continent, and 
preaching among all clases of Christian people, we have 

197 



"bread from heaven." 

learned that some manifestations are of the devil, some of 
the human spirit, and some of God. "We have met some 
who,. though very demonstrative, have cast-iron counte- 
nances, with a stand-off from me, I am holier than you, 
who are critical and sour in spirit, who have become 
lawless to all good government, which is ordained of God, 
who slander and backbite and maliciously connive to 
ruin their brother to gratify their selfish ends and aims, 
and who look down upon those who do not display the 
same outward manifestations, and who exercise their 
priestly denunciation by declaring some of the most 
blessed men and women damned souls. Many of us 
know some places and persons who have drifted into the 
wildest fanaticism, where there was no edification, but 
wild inarticulate expressions of wildfire, frightful 
screaming and yelling, f ailing down in the most awkward 
manner, if not in some of the most scandalous postures, 
where the spirit of the anointing was entirely absent. 
Ah, beloved, the love which is the bond of perfection, 
roots, weeds out the useless, that which is not in accord 
with the law of its own nature. 

The devil can imitate everything else but simple and 
pure and perfect love. Many a place, where new-born 
babes used to come through in the old time, shouting, 
happy, joyous and pentecostal way, is now become a 
cold, barren desert, where bleeding sheep come and go 

198 



THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 

away, saying, "I go there for I have no other place to 
go to, but I get nothing for my soul." How sad ! Faith, 
which does not work by pure and perfect love scatters 
sheep, in place of bringing them into the one fold and 
under the one shepherd. It is possible to have faith, 
which apprehends truth, with such an intensity as to 
run to extremes, unless your soul is filled with pure 
love, which is the bond of perfection, you will be like 
a lunatic with a razor, slashing and cutting every one, 
and only drive souls away in place of winning them to 
Jesus. How many noble souls have been driven away 
by this cut and slash business. The dear Lord shows 
us how far we ought to go, and when to stop. 

Hope! — Many seem to get over balanced even on this; 
some good folks sometime ago in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania sold out all they had, disposed of their belongings, 
and dressed in white in order to meet Jesus in His second 
advent Some go so far as to declare the day and the 
hour of His coming, when the Scriptures plainly teach 
that no man knows the day nor the hour of the coming 
of the Son of man. When perfect love controls our 
hope, then it cannot be too full. So we see that all 
these things can be run to extremes, but we never can 
be an extremist in this perfect pure and simple Christ- 
like love. It is the only bond of perfection, the only 
bond of peace, which will bind those who are guided 

199 



by this inward propelling power, which unites the family 
in earth and heaven and makes us one. Love never 
faileth. It is like God; it is on an equality with God, 
for God is love. There may be extremes in every thing 
else, but there never can be an extreme in divine love. 
It is never intemperate. When it is most manifest it is 
most hidden in Christ with God. It speaks the loudest 
in its deepest silence; in its secret of God-like quietness 
it is most aggressive; it never seeks flattery; it considers 
well before acting, and then dashes on in an almost 
noiseless activity. It has no anxious cares; never fusses, 
flutters, frets, or worries. It is never anxious about suc- 
cess, and still it is filled with a holy anointed zeal, with 
knowledge. It has a practical burning compassion for 
others; it is never spasmodic, never vacillates; it has no 
ups and downs; takes no spells; always even; always still; 
it never runs away with new teaching until thoroughly, 
candidly, honestly, and intelligently investigated ; it never 
quenches the Holy Spirit; it dares to preach death and 
judgment and hell, and heaven, and Almighty Savior 
who is able to save to the uttermost; perseveres in little 
things knowing that nothing is little which is done for 
God ; sacrifice is lost in its fathomless ocean ; it is always 
true; puts off nothing till to-morrow, which can reason- 
ably be performed to-day; avoids neglectful omissions; 
it is always transparent, having fellowship with itself, 



THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 

no matter in what denomination it may be found; dis- 
cerns quickly the difference between the church of Jesus 
Christ and the apostacy in the professing churches. Its 
holy anger attracts instead of driving away; in one word 
it is the bond of perfection, the only thing which will 
ever bring together all classes and grades of Christian 
people; no matter what clime, state, nationality or 
denomination divine providence may have placed them 
in. Oh, for a Magara of this Christ-like love, begotten 
by the Holy Spirit, it is a flame of living fire, burning 
its way through every obstacle, not burning the saints 
out, but melting them into a Christ-like unity. When it 
speaks, it is backed up by the same almightiness which 
keeps this old world in motion. It is a living dynamite 
in the soul it blooms like the Rose of Sharon in the 
most desolate places. It is pure like the lily of the 
valley in this poor Christless, corrupt, bleak, dark, cold 
and selfish world; it inspires, cheers and comforts. 

Everything else, without it, is but hollow mockery. 
It is the true companion this side of Heaven; it is the 
hope of earth; the joy of the celestial world, for what 
would Heaven be without it? 

It is like the alabaster box, it leaves a sweet smelling 
savor, a heavenlike incense; it surprises you in its burden- 
bearing; it never murmurs, never complains, never re- 
pines. In its depth of poverty it finds riches of wealth. 

201 



In its nothingness it is not behind the very chiefest of 
the apostles; it is wise, while it is looked upon as foolish- 
ness by the world and popular Christianity, still it is 
the very wisdom of God. It is without hypocrisy. 
Being pure it sees God; it discerns spiritual things, as 
clear as a sunbeam; it rises above human learning, and 
finds its home in the places in Heaven in Christ Jesus. 
It seeks those things which are above, still it is ever 
aggressive, in the helping and saving and sanctifying 
of others. The more it is put into the fiery furnace, the 
more transparent it becomes. It is honest while declared 
dishonest; pure while declared impure; true while de- 
clared deceitful; wise while declared unwise; rich while 
looked upon as poor; fit company for the aristocracy in 
glory, while looked upon down here as the refuse of 
earth, true in its heart's core; rich while having nothing; 
possesses the author of love, while declared to be the 
possessor of a demon. You can imitate everything else, 
but this one thing, Perfect Love. 

It can never be damned up by an unholy ecclesiasti- 
cism or a bigoted comeoutism, which runs off into 
anarchy, or priestcraft of any description, for it hates 
lawlessness, while it loves the perfect law of liberty. It 
respects all men, and honors their positions, but gives 
homage to no Pope, neither in Romanism or Protestant- 
ism, for it has found its living head in the heart of God. 

202 



THE BOND OF PERFECTION. 



Whatever else you may have, be confident, you are 
deluged with this all-swaying love of Jesus. 

Be sure your soul is well saturated with it, and God 
will give you victory. 



203 



Gifts. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GIFTS. 

The Apostle Paul in writing to the Church at Corinth 
devotes one entire chapter to the above subject. He 
informs them that there are diversities of gifts and min- 
istrations with the same spirit. That there are diversi- 
ties of workings by the same God, and to each is given 
the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal. He 
exhorts us to desire earnestly the best gifts, such as wis- 
dom, knowledge, faith, healings, working of miracles, 
prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kind of talents, 
but that all these worketh the one and the same spirit 
dividing to each one severally, but he nowhere affirms 
that we may not have full salvation and still be devoid 
of all or any of these gifts. Stating distinctly at the 
conclusion of the 12th chapter that love, the Spirit's 
gift, is more excellent. In these days there seems to 
be a great seeking after extraordinary gifts. Doubtless 
such were in the early Church, both before and after 
Pentecost Some had the gift of languages so that they 
could speak that which they had never been taught, 
some the gift of healing so that they could immediately 
heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cause the dumb 
to speak, unstop the ears of the deaf, and restore, the 

207 



dead to life; there were marvelous events which occurred 
contrary to the laws of nature. I have never felt like 
condemning any for desiring these gifts, or depreciat- 
ing in the least any one whom God may have bestowed 
them upon. When they were used not to exalt self or 
gain selfish reputation, but to exalt and glorify Jesus, 
but at the same time close observation has taught me 
that there seems to be a great tendency to magnify gifts 
in place of magnifying Jesus. "When He, the Spirit of 
Truth, has come, He comes not to testify of gifts, but 
to testify of Jesus, and somewhat I have been impressed 
that while some are earnestly seeking extraordinary 
gifts, they are neglecting these gifts that God has 
already put within their reach. These which were im- 
parted by Go&, and which are useless, because they lie 
dormant. Oh, that we would listen to the voice of the 
Holy Spirit on this particular, and allow Him to awake 
us from our slumber, and bring forth these gifts, which 
we already have to make use of them in the building 
up of Christ's kingdom. For to him that hath, that is 
makes right use of what God has already given Him, 
to him will be given : and to him that hath not, that is, 
does not make use of what he already has, from him 
will be taken away. 

Doubtless all gifts come from God, and at the judg- 
ment we will be held accountable not only for the light 

208 



GIFTS. 

we have received, but for the talents we have neglected 
and allowed to lie dormant that might have been used 
in the salvation of souls. Oh, the multitudes that may 
be lost, eternally lost, on account of our wilful neglect 
on this matter. I say there is a danger of going out 
after extraordinary gifts, while at the same time we are 
neglecting what we already have. Such as seeking 
after the gifts of tongues, when we are neglecting to 
speak or preach in the language which we already have. 
I have met some who are earnestly seeking to be Latin, 
Greek and Hebrew scholars, who would be jubilant if 
they could master such, when they are neglecting to 
study and develop themselves to speak good plain 
English. 

What an extraordinary gift it is to be able to speak at 
all, and ought not our hearts to bound with joy and 
tongues swell His praises when we contemplate the love 
of God, in giving us this wonderful gift of speech. 

If you were dumb, and God should restore to you the 
once lost gift of speech, would not our hearts bound 
with gratitude to Him for so doing? It seems that we 
would never cease in making use of that gift to glorify 
Him, and ought we not now show our gratitude to Him 
by studying to master our native tongue instead of seek- 
ing some other extraordinary gift and under value those 

powers and abilities which we already possess? We 

209 



"bread from heaven." 

ought to remember that every gift which we possess 
cometh from above, and that we ought to make the 
right use of them as his trustees to promote His glory 
in the salvation of the lost and the sanctification of the 
Church. 

It is one thing to say "I belong to God," and another 
thing altogether to use what belongs to Him for His 
interests, and not to lavish them on our own lusts to 
make reputation for ourselves. All I have is His, my 
time, my talents, my money, my all. I am to be a living 
sacrifice, not to use it as I like, but to use it as His Holy 
Spirit directs me, exercising my best common sense in 
doing so. "We are but stewards, and all we have belongs 
to Him, and if we do not make a proper use of them, 
what an awful account we will have to render at the 
judgment, and what a multitude of souls may be eter- 
nally lost through our negligence. May the Holy Spirit 
burn this truth into our hearts. Oh, the amount of light 
and ability that is going to loss because people will not 
make use of that which they are already endowed with. 
You say, "I have no gifts," permit me to tell you that 
you are mistaken, every child of Adam, who is endowed 
with his right reason, has some gifts that could be used 
to glorify God in snatching souls from the burnings. 
If you deal with God in your secret closet He will reveal 
them to you. The Holy Spirit will aid you to discover 

210 



GIFTS. 

them, and when He has once revealed them to you, do 
not let them lie dormant, but begin at once to develop 
them. Oh, that we might pray over this, deal face to 
face with God about it. You may have the gift of lan- 
guage, so that you can move the hearts of thousands of 
men and cause them to yield to God, but you will never 
know it unless you begin to ask God to reveal it to you. 
Oh, the power of language! You may have a heart 
filled with music, which, if only abandoned to God, 
would smash, melt, and break down thousands of the 
hardest hearts, and be the means of capturing them for 
Jesus. My heart breaks with grief when I think of 
the talent on this line, which is not only going to waste, 
but which the devil is actually making use of in our 
theatre, opera houses, dance halls, parlors and saloons to 
bring multitudes to hell. Oh, Jesus, will thy professing 
Church ever wake up to see this! You may be able to 
be a leader of men, but how will you ever be able to 
know it, unless you commence in your class meeting, 
Sabbath-school, Christian Endeavor, or Epworth League ! 
You may have the gift of personal dealing, but it can 
never be brought forward unless you push out among 
the people. Oh! I am waiting for feeling, is that not 
the same excuse which the sinner makes when you in- 
vite him to the Cross? Is it not the same excuse which 
the believer makes when you invite him to abandon all, 

211 



"bread from heaven." 

that he may be entirely sanctified? How long would yon 
wait for feeling to rescue your child if he was drown- 
ing, or to snatch him from a burning house which had 
caught fire? I am impressed it is not feeling you need. 
It is a pure, unadulterated baptized love for God and 
perishing humanity and the sanctification of the Church 
you need. God may have endowed you with the gift 
of making money, on the principles laid down by the 
Word of God. Divine Providence may have placed 
it in your way. You ask me what am I to do with this 
gift. I answer, "Do not throw it away; do not let it lie 
dormant; make use of it for Jesus Christ; gather your 
thousands or millions as the case may be ; abandon it to 
God, exercise your business tact and God-given quali- 
fications; be a faithful steward; spread it consistently, 
systematically and wisely for the salvation of souls. Use 
it in the spreading of Spirit-anointed, fire-baptized, in- 
telligent and level-headed holiness literature. There 
ought to be a holiness paper, or at least one holiness 
book or one Bible in every family in the country. How 
little real zeal and go-aheadism there is on this line of 
spreading good, sound Pentecostal literature. When we 
see the amount of rubbish that is sold on our trains 
and in our depots, as well as in many of our so-called 
religious stores, our hearts ache when we see the little 
aggressiveness we have in spreading holy papers and 

3J3 



GIFTS. 

books. Use your money in sending forth. God-anointed 
ministers into the home and foreign fields, those who 
will risk their lives for the propagation and promulga- 
tion of Christ's Gospel, and the rescuing of souls from 
the awful lake of eternal despair, to which they are 
going. "We have no right to make money merely for 
ourselves, to decorate ourselves in gaud and fashion, 
to lavish it on our persons, and to swell our pride. We 
should make it for God and for the building up of the 
Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the conquering of the 
forces of hell. 

Whatever gift you may have, whether it be the gift 
of language, or singing, or making money, or playing 
an instrument, or praying, or preaching, or painting, 
or reading, or writing, or leading others, let me im- 
plore of you, make use of it at once, but at the same 
time do not magnify the gift, but hold up to a dying 
world Jesus and Him crucified, keep all or any of these 
gifts subordinate to Divine love. Above all be certain 
you have the gift of gifts, the blessed Christ Himself, 
dwelling within you. This you can have if you have 
nothing else. 

Whatever gifts God may have endowed you with 
do not undervalue them, do not use them or lavish them 
upon useless objects or inferior things, lift them into a 
pure atmosphere, make use of them for poor sinners, for 

213 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

lost souls, for His Church, for which He gave His blood. 
Do not, I beg of you, make use of them for anything 
but to glorify Jesus. Do not exalt them. Beware of 
the latest fads, keep on the line of perfect love, listen to 
the march, hear the step of thousands, nay, millions of 
souls marching down into the frightful pit of the 
damned. AYeep over them, win them, woo them, love 
them to the cross; love the souls for whom Christ gave 
His blood, and are calling for help everywhere. 

Come, come, draw near, love Jesus with all your heart 
and all your soul and all your strength, and in loving 
others this love will expand, your heart will grow larger, 
the divine passion for souls will lead you out to make 
greater sacrifices. Oh, brethren, cultivate this love; 
rush on in the face of every obstacle to gain your end. 



214 



; 'A Christ-Like Ministry." 



CHAPTER XV. 

EIST-LIKE MIXIST: 

To say that Protestant Christianity in all its various 
organizations is not accomplishing a very great amount 
of good in the world is not only pessimistic but to go 
in the face of universal experience. But while she is 
accomplishing a very great amount of good, it is evident 
to any close observer and to any spiritually anointed per- 
son who has the eyes of his understanding enlighted to 
discern the difference between truth and error, that the 
idea of a spiritual combat is almost absent from the reli- 
gion of this modem age. Multitudes flock to their differ- 
ent church organizations Sabbath after Sabbath, listen to 
the sermons preached by their pastors, read their Bibles 
mechanically and console themselves by singing psalms 
and hymns, Lauds or Matins, but as to the desperate 
struggle between truth and error, darkness and light, 
heaven and hell, they seem to comprehend but little of it. 
As a general rule the spiritual combat is almost absent 
from the religious life. In a great measure it is not 
adhered to by professing Protestant Christians, more 



* Delivered before the Ministerial Association at Youngs- 
town, Ohio. 

217 



11 BRKAD FROM HEAVEN." 

clearly than ever we see how much the arch-enemy of 
our souls is trying to blind-fold us. As long as we speak 
of God among ourselves, as long as we contemplate 
high ideals of Him as the ideal man or the model Christ 
worthy of our imitation, and edify one another by sing- 
ing, praying, and reasoning, or the reading of beauti- 
fully prepared essays, Satan will not trouble himself. 
But the moment you make a direct invasion upon his 
hellish kingdom then his rage is excited, and he opposes 
it with all his Satanic forces. However, if we read the 
acts or deeds of the Apostles in the light of the lamp 
of inspiration in which they were written, we will find 
that this is the very essence of the Apostolic Christianity, 
for after the Holy Ghost fell upon them in the upper 
room, and they were filled with the Spirit, they went 
forth as flames of fire to declare to the world that they 
were God's anointed messengers, imbued with Heaven's 
conquering power to pull down Satan's kingdom, inscrib- 
ing victory on their banner, through the blood of the 
Lamb. They rushed on without any periodicals, any 
ecclesiastical prestige, looked on as the off-scouring of 
the world and the scorn of hell. They witnessed forth 
with tongues of fire as the Spirit gave them utterance, 
declaring to the world fearlessly the relation of the blood 
of God to their own hearts, and to their fellow men. 
They turned the world upside down; they were mocked; 

218 



declared drunken, mad, fanatical, but as they testified, 
fear came upon every soul, and wonders and signs were 
done by these mighty heroes of God. They parted with 
this world's goods; they continued daily with one accord 
in the temple (not fighting one another), but breaking 
bread, and with singleness and purity of heart; they 
did eat their meat with gladness, and as a consequence 
they found favor with all the people and, praising God, 
they added to the church such as should be saved. Mind 
you, not a little revival every Fall and Winter, but 
added to the church daily, such as should be saved. 
The Sadducees, the Hetrodox folks were disturbed; they 
were grieved because these Apostolic heroes preached 
Jesus and the Resurrection. They laid hands upon 
them, but in place of being in any way discouraged they 
knew that the God who had filled them with pentecostal 
love was with them. That the Christ of the cross who had 
just a short time previous become victor over sin, Satan, 
Hell and Death, who had ascended from Olivet, and 
who had sent forth into their hearts the almighty con- 
quering pentecost that enabled them to baffie the High 
Priest and as many as were of his kindred who were 
gathered at Jerusalem. They were threatened, com- 
manded to speak no more in the name cf Jesus, but they 
declared that it was better to do right in the sight of God 
no matter what the opinions of men were. You see they 

219 



"BREAD FROM HKAVKN. 

were not saved and sanctified and ordained for them- 
selves. "No, no, they were called to take up the cross 
and to follow in the foot-steps of Him whose life was 
one of continual action. lie whose life was spent for 
others, for in the marvelous prayer in the 17th of 
John's gospel we find these words "For their sakes I 
sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through 
the truth." 

Oh, what a meaning is in these words! "As Thou, 
Father, has sent Me to weep and groan and live a life 
of poverty and suffering, and bleed and die an ignomin- 
ious death, to carry out Thy redemptive purpose, so I 
send these whom Thou hast given Me forth as sheep 
among wolves, as soldiers to endure hardness, and for 
their sakes, knowing that they would never be able to 
do it of themselves, I sanctify Myself that they also 
may be sanctified through the truth. And for this 
cause I came to this hour that they may go forth to be 
more than conquerors in the mighty combat against the 
power of darkness." Here we find that Christ's Chris- 
tianity is not a mere game, but a desperate struggle 
which requires all our faculties, our physical strength, 
our mind, our heart, our entire being. Hell is against 
us; the principalities and powers of darkness are against 
us; thousands are calling to us with a more piercing 
cry than the cry of the Armenians, or the Cubans, to 



"A CHRIST-LIKE MINISTRY." 

come to the rescue ; and if they are to be rescued we who 
profess to be Christ's followers are to be the instruments. 
Beloved, I feel this in my very soul; the eyes of my 
spiritual understanding are opened ; heaven and hell look 
with intense interest on the manner with which we as 
professing Christians conduct ourselves in this combat, 
and the destiny of immortal souls depends upon it. 

What shall we do? Shall we equip ourselves like 
men, and put on the whole armor of God and declare 
war, or disappoint our loving Lord and eternally lose 
our opportunity. You say to me, "what is the remedy?" 
First, it is necessary that we have spiritual life, that we 
have repented of our sins; that we are adopted into 
God's family; that we have the witness of the Holy 
Spirit; in one word that we are born again, regenerated. 
!N~ot only are we to know that all voluntary and known 
transgressions are forgiven, such as falsehood, theft, 
anger, indifference, etc., but that we are delivered from 
envy, jealousy, false timidity, false humility, a critical 
and sour spirit, a seeking of ecclesiastical honor, from 
the very root or seed principle of selfishness in all its 
forms. We must be confident that we are abandoned 
to God; that He has accepted the abandonment, and 
that we have received Jesus by faith as our sanctifier. 
The past may have been very dark and unfaithful, and 
doubtless as we look back it causes an awe of solemnity 

221 



" BREAD FROM HEAVEN." 

to come over us. The remembrance of which causes 
us to be very humble before God, and to have an abid- 
ing sorrow. But now the past is under the blood; our 
sins are cast behind His back as far as the East is from 
the West, never to be brought up against us any more. 
We are upon the solid rock Christ Jesus. He has tuned 
our hearts so that we can sing the song of Moses and 
the Lamb. We walk in the light of God; He has drawn 
and wooed us to follow on ; He has convicted us of innate 
depravity, the seed principle of all sin; we have made 
an honest and open confession; have placed ourselves 
on His altar as living sacrifices; we have accepted Him 
as our indwelling sanctifier; the Spirit of Truth has come 
in to abide. He has borne us on to perfection. We 
now enjoy the blessing of perfect love. Fear and 
torment have gone; we are satisfied in our hearts that 
Jesus is revealed to us as our sanctifier. We can look 
into His face with the eye of faith and sing: 

A heart in every thought renewed, 

And full of love divine, 
Perfect and right, and pure, and good, 

A copy, Lord, of Thine. 

Painful trying has ceased; now it is perfect trusting, 
trustful prayer. Your hopes are anchored, and now 
you have entered the life of ceaseless praise. You not 

222 



only have the shell, but the kernel, not only the husk, 
but the corn itself. Before we plunge into this battle, 
we must not only have this experience of perfect love, 
but we must be level-headed; see that we do not give 
ourselves to useless conversation, that we will not con- 
demn the sanctified who have not reached the same 
degree of development that we may have reached, 
for all are not blessed with the same degree of 
development. If God gives you success in soul- 
saving, be careful that you do not lose your head; 
cause a split in the church, and run off to establish one 
of your own. We have enough of church organizations ; 
what we need is not new church organizations, but the 
old ones made new by the mighty baptisms from heaven. 
Let us stand by one another, and by our sweetness and 
gentleness and loyalty to God, the church of Jesus Christ 
and humanity. Prove to them that in the face of every 
difficulty God has given us some stability. One of 
Satan's intrigues in all ages is to get God's sanctified 
ones divided. Let us have a clear perception of what we 
have to do and then in God's name arise and do it. 
Beware of a onesided gospel; the church seems ,to be 
full of it and multitudes are damned through it. Some 
folks' talk is all soft soap and treacle; others is all brim- 
stone and thunder; what the world needs is the truth 
poured out of a heart, aflamed with divine love. The 

223 



"bread from heaven." 



Christianity of the cross, which, while preaching hell, 
lives and dies to save people from it. 

^Nothing astonishes me, and I was going to say nothing 
fatigues me so much as to hear on every side, "I am wait- 
ing till the Savior calls me." What call do we want more 
than the word of the Lord, Go! What more than the 
cries that issue from so many pierced hearts, that is the 
most heartrending call. He has spoken; He speaks 
every day, every hour, and while we are waiting the 
precious time is slipping away and souls are being lost. 
We believe that a great mass of people are living in sin, 
in voluntary and known transgression against the law 
of God, and that if death should overtake them at any 
moment hell would be their doom. We preach this in 
our sermons, pray it in our prayers, sing it in our hymns; 
we declare it is so in the very salvation in which we 
believe. The Scriptures, which is the word of God, 
plainly teach us so. When we think of the millions who 
have gone to their eternal doom already, who have 
plunged themselves into the lake of eternal despair, 
we who have lived along side of them in the community 
in which they live, cannot help but feel that there is 
desperate action required on our part to rescue those 
who are still living. We cannot close up hell, but oh, 
brethren, it lies within our power to stop some of the 

fuel from going in. When we retire at night we cannot 

224 



'A CHRIST-LIKE MINISTRY." 

help but contemplate and peruse in our minds the 
thousands around us who are lying on the brink of the 
bottomless pit of eternal despair, out of which there is 
no redemption, and with such thoughts burned into our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost, we cannot but feel that all 
our ability, our time, our strength, is to be devoted to the 
one great cause of soul-saving. We must have courage 
to face this battle; see how much courage is spent in 
worldly enterprise; at one time the whole of Great 
Britain was moved by the heroism of some men who 
took upon themselves the task of discovering seme little 
unknown islands in the Pacific ocean. They braved 
dangers hitherto unheard of. Hungry and surrounded 
by enormous blocks of ice they were found almost dead, 
until the nations cried out, "Let the land remain hidden 
forever, rather than pay such a price." I noticed during 
our late war that patriotic mothers, out of love for their 
country, willingly gave up the lives of their sons in order 
to free the Cubans. And I noticed in our daily papers 
that one of our representatives declared that the entire 
nation and every dollar was at the back of President 
McKinley in order to be victorious in the Spanish- 
American war. Oh, how we need Christians to brave 
such dangers, and make such sacrifices for the salvation 
of souls. Certainly we will meet difficulties, but the 

Holy Ghost will inspire us with that courage which 

225 



"bread from heaven." 

nothing can quell or subdue. We must be determined 
by God's grace to gain our end, no matter what the cost, 
even if it will take our lives to do so. If we keep on 
the pentecostal line we will be attacked on all sides, and 
tempted in every manner by Satan. It is the moral 
cowards he lets alone, and there is nothing so contempt- 
able in the sight of God as cowardly Christians who seek 
to save their own skin when it is a question of declaring 
war for God and of suffering something for the cause of 
experimental and practical holiness. 

Is it not a shame for us only to show ourselves when 
all goes well, and who are always counting what it will 
cost us to participate in an out and out war for God 
and perishing humanity? Christ can deliver us from 
cowardice; God has not given us the spirit of fear, but 
of holy fearlessness. Let us in God's name be coura- 
geous; let us have that sanctified hardness, which is 
ready for anything, save to yield. 

TIMIDITY. 

Let us not speak of our timidity as if it were a 
virtue or weakness on which we should take pity and 
hide ourselves behind this excuse, but in the name of 
God and for the sake of the dying masses who are 
rushing headlong to eternal ruin, let us claim deliver- 
ance and courage to declare the divine truth at all costs. 

226 



" A CHRIST-LIKE MINISTRY. 

It is a crime to be weak when we are commanded to be 
strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. The 
most timid and reserved natures may become veritable 
lions for God and holiness, if they will but receive the 
Holy Ghost. Up! sanctify yourselves, for to-morrow 
He will do wonders in our midst. Let us follow our 
Joshua, obey his commands until our enemy shall be 
defeated. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto 
Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria 
and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. 

We must persevere. When in Chicago some time 
ago, I was conversing with the wif e of a celebrated artist. 
She told me her husband had labored a long time to 
finish a beautiful picture. He presented it to the gallery, 
and on his return home he was dumb with sorrow, be- 
cause it had been refused, but the next day he set him- 
self to work again, and during months he labored un- 
flinchingly, rising at day-break and only leaving his 
workshop for a short walk in the evening. 



227 



"A Christ-Like Ministry." 

Continued. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

1 'a christ- like ministry. ; ' ( Continued . ) 

Day after day, without interruption, lie continually 
worked to make his picture a success, until at last it 
was accepted at the gallery the following year. If such 
perseverence has been spent in the view of passing glory, 
is it too much to ask for Him who has given Himself 
for us? (Titus 2: 14.) 

If there is one thing which ought to surprise us, if 
not disgust us, it is this let-go, this softness, which is 
carried into the service of Jesus Christ, and which 
springs from nothing else but a guilty carelessness. God 
will not give us his approbation in the judgment day 
if we have only walked by fancies, when all was going 
well, when we feel disposed, when every one was tap- 
ping us on the back, and who shrink back in the face of 
the cross, a mere misrepresentation, a misunderstanding, 
or petty slander. "If any man come after Me," said 
Jesus, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, 
and follow Me." (Luke 9: 23.) There are some slow 
natures particularly tempted on this point; it seems that 
if the angel Gabriel himself was to help them he could 
not make them go any faster. Oh, the Church of God is 
too slow. If you are in this position, let me entreat of 
you, in the name of Jesus and for the sake of the con- 

231 



gregations whom you serve, put yourself resolutely at 
work; decide and triumph over your weakness; it re- 
quires will, it requires an effort, and remember that 
God will give you the victory. "Him that overcometh 
will I make a pillar in the temple of my God." (Kev. 
3: 12.) God will give us backbone, stability; faith con- 
quers; impossible to conquer without faith, impossible 
to please God without faith. Let us have no reference 
to sentiment or difficulties, but to Jesus alone. Faith 
sings in the dark places; it removes mountains of diffi- 
culties; it is victorious everywhere, and at all times. 
Through tears, anguish of spirit, solitude, she cries, 
"Victory is ours through the blood of the Lamb." She 
is steady and calm, not tossed about to the right nor to 
the left; she triumphs; unbelief, on the contrary, is 
accompanied by agitation, murmuring, complaining, 
always looking at the dark side of things, judges like the 
world from appearances, is tortured by what people 
think and say, and by the judgment they place on his ac- 
tions. I firmly believe that God does not sanctify us to 
be a failure, for whether it may seem a failure or not 
in the eyes of the world, everything that a true sancti- 
fied hero of the cross undertakes, guided by the wisdom 
of God, and actuated by pure motives, inspired by God, 
the Holy Ghost, and baptized not only in heart, but 
with a fair share of common sense, is bound to be vic- 

232 



"A CHRIST-LIKE MINISTRY." 

torious. Unbelief concludes the first onset that it is im- 
possible to do this or that. All things are possible to 
him that believeth; we must obey God; we must honor 
the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts; we must 
not consult flesh and blood, but go forward. 

Returning home from preaching one Sunday even- 
ing, I remarked thus to a brother minister: "Do you not 
think we ministers ought to be holy men of God, that 
we ought to be more practical and definite and aggres- 
sive in presenting this glorious experience of entire 
sanctification to our congregations?" He answered, 
"Yes, I feel it; I know it, but," he said, "brother, how 
am I to do it? I know I ought to do it, but I do not 
know how I ought to go about it, you know, brother," 
he said, "to stand out entirely for God in the face of 
men and demons means so much, to preach and testify 
to entire sanctification as an instantaneous work by 
faith inwrought in the heart of the Holy Ghost. It 
means to be looked upon as an extremist, as a fanatic, 
as ignorant, as not being wise or prudent, as not being 
fit for a responsible charge, to be looked upon as un- 
safe. Then what would my family do? I must have 
means to raise and educate my children, and to seek and 
find this blessed experience, to preach and teach and 
testify to it definitely would mean to lose the good will 
of my brethren in the ministry, and if I should con- 

233 



BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

tinue to do so, you know I would be located, or what you 
Eoman Catholics call excommunicated, or silenced." 

I could not help turning to him, and saying thus: 
"My dear brother, where is your God? You, a Protest- 
ant minister, can you trust Him, who provides for the 
sparrow, who will not let one hair of your head fall out 
without your knowledge." Oh, I thought how little 
real perfect trust there is in God. In the face of every- 
thing we must obey God and trust Him for the conse- 
quences. God has commanded us to be holy (1 Peter 1: 
16), and it is the will of God that we be holy, clean 
and pure in His sight, for without it we cannot see the 
Lord. Faithful obedience to God. Dare to be true to 
the Holy Spirit. The world hated Jesus, not because 
he lived a holy life, but because He declared that He 
was the Son of God. The world does not hate us so 
much for living holy, but for daring to be witnesses to 
the cleansing blood, that not only pardons our sins, and 
cleanses our guilt, but which also cleanses our depravity 
and brings us not only in harmony with God's law, but 
in harmony with God's own nature, for as He is, so 
are we in this world, "We must be united." If you 
will turn to the seventy-first verse in the wonderful 
prayer of Jesus, in the seventeenth chapter of John's 
Gospel, you will find these words: "That they all may 
be one." 

234 



Some time ago the question was asked me what is the 
shortest and best way to bring the professing Christian 
Church into the blessing of entire sanctification. My 
answer was, "Love." If worldings are not satisfied till 
they have adopted the most efficacious means for at- 
taining their end, how much more we, as ministers, to 
be anxious to employ the most direct means for bringing 
the Church into the gracious experience of full salva- 
tion. This century demands perfection in all depart- 
ments. If ever there has been a need for this Christ- 
love it is surely now. To gain money, to win honor, 
or achieve fame, the shortest road is taken. Is it not 
of vital importance for us ministers to discover the 
most direct road of reaching not only out and out sin- 
ners, but the believers in the Church? "When we con- 
sider the Satanic sagacity and frightful rapidity with 
which the enemy allures souls to their ruin, this ques- 
tion becomes the question of questions. In face of the 
appalling facts which confront us at every step, in the 
face of the eternal perdition toward which millions of 
souls are drifting, continually receding from hope and 
pity and mercy, love forbids us to take any other but 
the shortest and best road to reach them. If we could 
rest satisfied with less than this we should be of all cruel 
imposters the crudest, of all hearts the hardest. 

How am I to become wealthy? The answer is, work, 
235 



tug, speculate, bring into play every faculty, and every 
nerve, love money, and you will succeed. How am I to 
be happy? Come to me, says the world, give me your 
honor, your reputation, your fame, your home, your 
strength, your health, your time, your talents, your 
virtue, your money. Lay it upon my altar, worship the 
god of fashion, laugh, dance, sing, rejoice. Give me 
your whole heart. How can I bring the lost of America 
to God? How can I bring the Church back to its 
primitive purity and simplicity? Show me the shortest 
and best road to do it. You may feed the hungry, 
clothe the naked, instruct the ignorant, testify like an 
angel, sing like a Gabriel, preach like a Michael, work 
to the utmost extent a man of duty; regular, con- 
scientious, faithful to your principles in all the details 
of life, reprove sin, condemn falsity. I reply this is all 
very good. All these are excellent. Yet show I unto 
you a more excellent way — love. All is useless, all are 
empty forms without love. This is the key to unlock 
hearts. The secret which solves the problem of how 
to win and woo the sinner to the cross and the human 
heart of the believer into the blessing of entire sanctifi- 
cation. Brethren, you may have everything else, but 
if you lack this pure and sincere and perfect love of 
which Paul speaks, it may seem to you that it does profit 
you something, that you do accomplish some results, 

236 



"a christ-ukk ministry." 

but in the light of God, and in the light of judgment, 
it will be nothing. All your ambitious motives, the 
pride of your ecclesiastical position, your secret self- 
seeking, your duplicity, all which has had the appearance 
of love to others, which, perhaps, at the bottom was only 
love of self, all, all, all will be burned. This is that 
love manifested by Jesus on the cross, rather than His 
eloquence, or doctrines, or miracles, which has won the 
hearts of millions. Our country is dying for ministers 
of heart, hearts filled with holy love, hearts filled with 
sympathy, hearts filled with holy messages from above, 
filled with holy burning zeal and practical compassion 
for souls, that love which touches, breaks, melts, softens 
hearts. This love is the greatest thing in the universe. 
It is irresistible. This love requires nothing but itself, 
it can live without gratitude, and die without a "thank 
you." It bears and endures all things; perseveres, suf- 
fers, believes; it never gives in; it hopes; it never de- 
spairs; it shuts the door on doubt, and carries the 
weakest in His arms; it encourages when all around you 
discourages; it is faithful; it will never deceive you; 
it is real love, loyal, personal, profound which causes 
us to live in order to love Him. Baptizes, with a bap- 
tism of the all-conquering love, we would soon bring 
sinners to God, and the Church back to her primitive 
purity, joy, glory, and power. Holiness is perfect love. 

237 



It is that love which becomes the very motive power 
of our existence. Just as the redeemed in heaven are 
in perfect harmony with the whole will of God, who is 
love, so our hearts, our very lives are brought by love 
in perfect harmony with the whole will of God. Oh, 
for the labors, the tears, the preachings, the praying, 
the self-denying, the sacrifice, the self-renunciation 
which streams from a minister's heart filled with this 
perfect love. This disinterested love, this Christ-like 
love, this is the love that will resist all obstacles and face 
all difficulties. This is the love that will last forever, 
when faith and hope will be required no more. I am 
convinced, brethren, that the shortest road to bring the 
lost to Jesus' feet and to bring the Church into the 
heavenly experience of perfect love is to have it your- 
self. He who will do most in this direction must love 
most. The glorious truths enunciated by Jesus. His 
strong denunciations. His teachings and His miracles 
would have accomplished little had they not the stream- 
ing love of Calvary to back them up. That precious 
blood, coming from a loving heart, has accomplished 
more than learning, science, philosophy, astronomy, 
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, rhetoric, or fine sermons ever 
will or ever could accomplish. 



238 



The Entire Sanctification of Believers. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS.* 

(IThess. 5: 23, 24.) 

This prayer is the prayer of the Apostle Paul for the 
Church at Thessalonica. Would God inspire the apostle 
to pray a prayer that He would bo unwilling to answer! 
You would immediately answer, No. God would never 
inspire a prayer in the heart of any of His children that 
He would not be ready and willing to answer when they 
came to the throne of grace with their petition, asking 
it, in and through the name of Jesus; for He has told 
us to ask that we might receive, and to seek that we 
might find, and knock that the door might be opened 
unto us, and Mark tells us (11: 24) that, "What things 
soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye re- 
ceive them, and ye shall have them." And again has He 
not told us in John 15, that if we abide in Him and 
His words abide in us, we shall ask what we will, and 
it shall be done unto us? Here the apostle prays that 
these believers, these children of God, who had been 



•Preached at Mountain Lake Park Camp Meeting, Mary- 
land, 1898. 

241 



adopted into His own dear family, might be sanctified, 
but that they might be sanctified wholly, and not only 
doe3 He pray that they might be sanctified, and sancti- 
fied wholly, but he prays that they might be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and that He who hath called them unto sanctification 
was faithful to do the work for them, for he declares in 
the 24th verse, "That He who hath called them is faith- 
ful to do it," that the same God who is the author of 
peace, He who gave us peace in justification, that He 
the Prince of Peace who was sent for the redemption 
of the world, that very God might sanctify those be- 
lieving children wholly, leave no more evil in their 
hearts than His precepts tolerate even in our conduct, 
that He may sanctify us to the uttermost, for He is able 
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by 
Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for 
them. 

"We will notice in the first place that the Apostle Paul 
was not praying for sinners, but that his prayer was for 
believers, for if you will turn back to the first chapter, 
that Paul declares in writing to this Church that they 
were in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ 

You will notice in the second verse that he has a 
perpetual doxology of praise; that he remembers with- 
out ceasing their work of faith and labor of love and 

242 



THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 

patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the 
sight of God our Father. 

You will notice in the fourth verse that he calls them 
brethren, mind you not sinners, but brethren. He says, 
"Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God." 
They had received the Gospel. It came to them not 
only in word, but also in power and in Holy Ghost. 
They received the "Word in much affliction, with joy of 
the Holy Ghost. So that we can see that they were 
begotten of God. The very word regenerate means 
beget, to renovate, to renew, to impart life, and the 
word sanctify means to make clean, to make pure, to 
make holy, and the Methodist catechism declares that 
sanctification is that act whereby we are made holy. 
So we see that this Church for which the Apostle Paul 
prayed was in a regenerated state, and that they were 
proper candidates for the Apostle Paul to pray this 
wonderful prayer that they might be sanctified wholly. 

Oh, that every minister would follow the example 
of this mighty hero of the cross in commencing to pray 
that the Holy Ghost might fall upon their congrega- 
tions and sanctify their believing children! 

Oh, beloved, I love to see sinners converted and back- 
sliders reclaimed, but somehow, since I received the 
second blessing, God has given me a burning desire to 
see believers sanctified. 

243 



The second truth you will notice is that while they 
were regenerated they were not sanctified wholly; but 
some one says, "Are you not sanctified when you are 
regenerated?" Oh, yes, as John Wesley very plainly 
states, we are partially sanctified when we are born into 
the kingdom, but it is evident that we are not sanctified 
wholly at one and the same time we are regenerated, or 
else the Apostle Paul must have made a great mis- 
take, and none of us would dare admit this, in praying 
that these believers at Thessalonica might be sanctified 
subsequent to regeneration. So we see that any candid 
individual who is inquiring after truth will see at a 
moment's glance that we are not entirely sanctified at 
one and the same time we are converted. I admit that 
they may be wholly sanctified one minute or five min- 
utes after we are regenerated as well as we could be en- 
tirely sanctified one year or five years after we are re- 
generated, but the point I want to make is this, that we 
are not sanctified wholly at one and the same time at 
conversion, but that is always subsequent to regenera- 
tion. 

I have listened to some one who said they got it all 

at once when they were converted, but, strange to say, 

they never testify to it definitely, stranger still, while 

they confess that they believe in holiness or entire sanc- 

tification it sends a chill through them, and a sort of 

244 



THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 

disgust when an humble believer declares boldly that 
God has done this gracious work in his heart. 

Now if these brethren declare they received it all at 
once when they were converted, why is it that they 
never testify to it definitely, and why do they seem to 
be so opposed to the children of God who declare that 
they have received it subsequently to regeneration? 

The third thought that I want to call your attention 
to is that we do not receive this blessing by gradual 
process. But some one says, "I believe that it is re- 
ceived instantaneously." Now, beloved, I admit that 
our part may be gradual or instantaneous, that is we 
may make a complete abandonment instantaneously, 
or we may spend one, two, three or five years in making 
our complete consecration. Some do this. This is a 
hard route, but whether our part is instantaneous or 
gradual, God's part is always instantaneous. Let ue 
read the text, "The very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly." Many have overlooked this word sanctify, 
but you will find that this word sanctify is in the aorist 
tense, so that here and now, this present moment, 
when I make a complete abandonment to God of the 
whole man, God sanctifies me wholly, making my heart 
pure and clean, a fit temple for His dwelling, and He, 
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, comes in to 
reveal Jesus to me, as my sanctifier, so that my very 

245 



nature is brought into harmony with the whole will of 
God, bringing me into the place where I can develop 
or mature in divine life. I have all time and eternity 
to mature in, but only here and now to become clean, 
pure, entirely sanctified. 

You say to me, "I believe in sanctification,but I do not 
believe that the Spirit witnesses to this work the same 
as he witnesses to the children of God when they are 
regenerated." This is a point that baffles a great many, 
but, beloved, I desire to inform you that the Holy Spirit 
is the executive agent in the work of sanctification, and 
that his office work is to witness to this work in the heart 
of every believer who has unreservedly given himself 
or herself wholly to God. But that He never witnesses 
to the work, and the fire never falls until we have given 
up and dropped down, so to speak, into His will so that 
He can accomplish His design and purpose and will in 
us by the sanctification of our souls, giving us the wit- 
ness in these words, Heb. 10: 14, 15: "For by one offer- 
ing He had perfected forever them that are sanctified, 
whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us." 

Blessed be God! The same prayer that the Apostle 
Paul prayed for the believers at Thessalonica can be 
answered if we get down humbly around the altar and 
pray until the fire falls. God does sanctify. I have 
proven it in my own heart that He, the blessed Spirit, 

246 



THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BEUEVERS. 

does come and apply the blood to the cleansing of our 
moral natures, filling us with His holy presence and 
bringing us into the Land of Beulah, where we can feast 
upon the hidden manna, if we will but yield. Thank 
God, this is the only purgatory I am ever to pass 
through. Somehow I feel I have given a hop, step and 
a leap over purgatory, and that I have got into this 
blessed state, where all is quiet and rest and peace 
and calm, and where my soul is bathed in heaven's 
love. 

Not only does the Apostle Paul pray that the be- 
lievers of this Church might be wholly sanctified, but he 
also prays that they may be preserved blameless until 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is a point 
well worthy of note. In this life we never can be fault- 
less, but we can be blameless. For instance, my little 
boy, who is but two years of age, commits a great many 
faults, but while he is not faultless, we can truly say 
he is blameless. So you and I may commit many faults. 
We may err in our judgment. We may forget many 
things. We may never be able to render perfect ser- 
vice to God. In one word, we are not faultless, but we 
may and can be preserved blameless until the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Somehow or other I like 
that word preserved. You sisters know what it is to pre- 
serve fruit. I recall to mind that last summer Mrs. 

247 



Dempster was very anxious to put up some fruit. She 
requested of me to go down town to buy some jars. I 
noticed when I returned home with the jars that she had 
purchased some fruit. She brought it into the kitchen. 
I watched her closely. She took the fruit and thor- 
oughly cleansed it, and after she cleansed it she put it 
into a kettle, placing it upon the stove. After a little 
while I noticed her putting some sugar into it. I said 
to her, "Why do you put the sugar into the fruit?" She 
answered me thus: "I want to keep it from souring." 
After it was sometime on the fire she took it off, and 
placing the fruit in the jars I noticed that she put rub- 
bers upon them and then tightened the lid until she 
convinced herself that there was no possibility of leak- 
age, in some instances I noticed that she sealed the jars. 
After a little she says, "I am very tired; would you very 
kindly carry this fruit to the cellar?" As I had been 
watching the process very carefully I said to her, "Why 
do you have the fruit carried to the cellar?" And she 
answered, "The cellar is the proper place for preserving 
it until next winter. It is nice and cool, and next winter 
if any stranger should come to our home, we will have 
some nice fruit to dish up to them." I did not say any- 
thing to her at the time, but in my own mind I had been 
taking it all in. I thought thus: This is a good illustra- 
tion of what God, so to speak, does for us when he sanc- 

248 



THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BEUEVERS. 

tifies wholly. He lias bought us with His own blood, 
and is not only willing to save us from hell and to give 
His own blessed Spirit, but He also desires, if we will 
it, to sanctify, or cleanse, or make us holy. 

After He cleanses us thoroughly, as my dear wife 
cleansed the fruit, He then permits us for His own wise 
purpose, if we are loving and loyal and true to our testi- 
mony, to put us into the fire, where we will be looked 
upon as fanatical, as boasters, as those who think we are 
holier than any one else, where our friends will misun- 
derstand us, and then if we are not careful we are liable 
to lose our sweetness and gentleness of the Holy Spirit, 
and become bitter and hard and sour, and perhaps in 
defending holiness lose the very spirit of it out of our 
own hearts, and then are liable to run off into comeout- 
ism and all sorts of wildfire. 

Ah, beloved, at this period of our experience, we 
ought to go to our knees, spend a good deal more time 
in definite communion with God, and ask God to 
sweeten us up, to put more sugar — I mean so give us 
more of the second blessing, holy love fire, that will be 
gentle, loving and kind and that beareth all things. 

Let us look out for seeking any other blessing after 
we have received the second blessing, for the end of the 
commandment is love out of a pure heart, and John 
"Wesley very wisely advises all his children after they 

249 



have been sanctified to seek no other blessing but more 
love. 

After she placed the fruit into the jars I said to her, 
"Why are you so exact in tightening the lids upon them, 
and why do you place sealing wax around the lids?" 
"Why," she said, "I do not want any wind to get into 
them, for if any wind should get into the fruit it would 
utterly destroy it." I thought thus: "Here is another 
lesson." 

We have got to be closed in with God, to be sealed 
by the Holy Spirit so that we will be preserved from all 
wind or strange doctrines, such as celibacy, such as 
coming out from all the churches and declaring them 
Babylon, as running off into extreme views on faith 
healing, of becoming all dress religion in place of hold- 
ing up the Christ of the cross and of becoming peevish 
and hard to get along with. Therefore, we ought to give 
the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard, 
lest at any time we should let them slip. The marginal 
says, run out as leaking vessels. 

Lastly, I noticed that she had the fruit carried to the 

cellar, and she declares that it was the best place for the 

fruit to be placed in order that it might be preserved; 

that the cellar was nice and cool, and that next winter 

the fruit will be palatable to be dished up for any 

stranger that might come to our home. 

250 



THE ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BEUEVERS. 

After we have escaped the corruption that is in the 
world through lust, we are liable, if we are not careful, 
to let our zeal run away with us. So many at this 
period want to run out to be teachers, who, while they 
could be used of God in their home Church and com- 
munity, and be the means of blessing and of strength 
to the Church, want to run out and become teachers 
before they are thoroughly qualified. More and more 
I am convinced that the leading and teaching of souls is 
an awful responsibility, and that many who have run 
off into the strangest and wildest notions might have 
been made blessed men if they had remained in the 
cellar of obscurity, where they could have been pre- 
served and qualified for a more successful future public 
ministry. 

God wants us to be sound men, for He hath not given 
unto us the spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and 
of a sound mind. (1 Tim. 1 : 17.) 

We are not only to serve God with all our heart and 
soul, but we are also to serve Him with all our mind. 
If we will remain in the cellar, and allow God to open 
the way so that He can place us where He most needs 
us, He will, so to speak, make us love-slaves, where we 
need not worry or fret or pine. He will not only give 
us precious promises, but he will bring us into our 
spiritual mathematics where, after we are well doctri- 

251 



nated we will not be tossed about by every wind of doc- 
trine, but will inspire us with holy courage, so that in 
the face of men and devils we can be fearless, like New- 
foundlanders to jump out and save somebody. We will 
enter into the school of Christ, where by studying works 
and close application to the Word of God we will study 
to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that 
need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of 
truth; we will shun profane and vain babblings, for 
they always increase unto more ungodliness. We shall . 
learn to suffer with Him so that we may reign with Him. 
We will endure all things for the elects' sake that they 
may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus 
with eternal glory, knowing that the foundation of God 
standeth sure; having this seal, the Lord knoweth them 
that are His. 

He will reveal to us the necessity of self-control, self- 
government, so that we will not run before His Spirit, 
so that our holiness will not only be theoretical and 
experimental, but practical. He will also reveal to us 
the necessity of patience in all petty annoyances or 
grievances which we shall come in contact with among 
even the sanctified, so that we can cultivate this blessed 
life of meekness and patience, so that we can become 
mature and more God-like, ripening for heaven, enter* 
ing into a brotherly kinship, so that we will not confine 

252 



THE KNTIRE SANCTIFICATION OF BEUBVERS. 

to our denomination all the sanctified, knowing that 
God has seven thousand, perhaps in some other denomi- 
nation, who never have bowed their knee to Baal, giving 
us the spirit of charity as the tire to keep the spokes well 
centered in the hub of heart purity, so that He may keep 
us preserved blameless in love until death shall overtake 
us or until we meet Him in the second advent Amen. 



253 



Divine Guidance. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will 
guide you into all truth (R. V.), for He shall not speak 
of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear that shall He 
speak. He shall show you things to come; He shall 
glorify Me (Jesus) for He shall receive of Mine and 
show it unto you. Blessed heavenly sublime truth! rich 
inheritance! How immeasurable the depths of the 
riches of the glory in Christ Jesus ! You will notice that 
the word Spirit is capitalized, which denotes the person- 
ality of the Holy Ghost. You will also notice the 
pronoun He; "when He is come," He, a person, not 
merely an attribute or operation or influence. Certainly 
the attributes of God are ascribed to Him, as are set 
forth plainly in the Scriptures, for the Psalmist David 
cries out, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither 
shall I flee from Thy presence?" Here we see the omnip- 
otence of the Holy Spirit, and Paul in 1st Corinthians 
2: 10, 11, declares Him omniscience. God hath revealed 
Him unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea the deep things of God, for what man 
knoweth the things of man save the Spirit of man which 

257 



"BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

is in him; even so the things of God knoweth no man, 
but the Spirit of God, and the same apostle in writing 
to the Komans declares the power of the Spirit. (Romans 
15: 13, 19.) Now the God of Hope fill you with all 
joyous peace in believing that you may abound in hope, 
through the power of the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit). 

And I am persuaded that if you but have that, ye 
also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able 
also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, 
I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort 
as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is 
given to me of God. That I should be the minister of 
Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of 
God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be 
acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost (Holy 
Spirit). I have, therefore, whereof I may glory through 
Jesus Christ, through those things which pertain to God. 
For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which 
Christ hath not wrought by me. To make the Gentiles 
obedient by word and deed. Through mighty signs and 
wonders, through the Power of the Spirit, and again we 
find Paul, or as Alfred the Prince of Greek Scholars, 
declaring in Heb. 9 : 14 the Eternity of the Holy Spirit. 
How much more shall the Blood of Jesus Christ who 
through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot 
to God. Purge your conscience from dead works to 

258 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

serve the living God. We see here the attributes of God 
are ascribed to the Holy Spirit His omnipotence, omnis- 
cience, power, eternity; but as I stated in the fore- 
going He is not merely intended a mere attribute of 
God, or operation or influence, but that He, the Holy 
Spirit, proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

How would it sound in repeating the Apostle's Creed, 
to say, "I believe in the operation, influence, attribute," 
in place of saying, "I believe in the Holy Ghost." 
A soul without the Holy Ghost is void of grace, because 
without His presence we can have no spiritual life. 

There are three distinct persons; notice the word three 
—The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. (See 
Matt. 3: 16, 17.) 

For John declares that after night prayers in the 
lonely Isle of Patmos that he saw a pure river (The 
Holy Spirit), clear as crystal, proceeding from the Throne 
of God and the Father. The Holy Spirit which is the 
mighty river, which John saw, is nothing more or less 
than the Holy Spirit which proceeds from the Father 
and the Son. How would it look or sound to say, "May 
the blessing of God the Father, and God the Son, and 
the Holy attribute, operation and influence, eternity, 
omnipotence, omniscience, and power remain evermore 
with you. Amen. Or, "I baptize you in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the attribute, opera- 

259 



tiori, influence, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience and 

the power?" 

Now you see how absurd this would be, and still 

we find Protestants all over the country denying the 

personality of the Holy Spirit, who are awfully tenacious 

for the water Religion. The good Lord deliver us from 

such heresy! For if the Holy Spirit is not real and 

truly God, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, the 

Bible deceives, the Church is deceived, and if He is 

not really and truly God, then we have no way to be 

undeceived; for the Bible tells He is the Spirit of the 

Truth; He is the Spirit to reveal Jesus, the Way, 

the Truth and the Life, and if we deny the personality 

of the Holy Spirit, then we deny the revelation of Jesus 

who is the Truth, and if we deny the revelation of Jesus, 

we deny our holy religion; we deny heaven, hell; we 

deny the Bible, for all the promises are in Christ. Yea 

and Amen, to him that believeth, for outside of Christ 

is nothing. Oh, how blind some Protestants are. But 

blessed be God! He is a personal God, for He dwells 

in my heart revealing Jesus to me. Hallelujah! Amen. 

The Lord is that Spirit, for where the Spirit of the Lord 

is there is liberty. For we all with open face, as in a 

glass, by the glory of the Lord are changed into the same 

image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the 

Lord. Glory! 

260 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have 
been fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) by 
the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, 
which was guide to them that took Jesus. 

Personal Holy Spirit speaking. They spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit), as the 
Spirit gave them utterance. Those who deny the Holy 
Spirit, spake as they were moved by the false Philosophy 
of the college professors. The apostles to what they 
knew of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit; they 
may live it, but don't say anything about it, but how 
can you either live or speak it, if there is no personal 
Holy Spirit to teach conscience? And when the day 
of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one 
accord in one place, and sudden, that is instantaneous, not 
by growth or culture or long experience or evolution or 
antinomianism. Suddenly there came a sound from 
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, they had a cyclone, 
— Dear Lord, send more such cyclones through the 
Church! and it filled all the house where they were 
sitting, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, 
like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they 
were all filled with an attribute, operation, influence, 
omnipotence, omniscience, eternity and power. You see 
how foolish such teaching is, — they were all filled with 
the Personal Holy Spirit, and they began to speak with 

261 



other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. They 
got tongues of fire; — they magnified the Blood; not 
water, but the Blood — they showed to the world by wit- 
nessing the relation of the Blood of God, their own 
heart's experience, and to their fellow-men they declared 
His power to save, to sanctify, to make clean, to make holy. 
When He, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Jesus, 
is come, He will guide you into all truth, into all the 
revelation that is in Jesus, that is essential to guide, — 
from earth to glory land. Hallelujah! I have dwelt 
some length on the personality of the Holy Spirit, for 
I have met a certain class of teachers denying and de- 
luding thousands of our precious people. But you know 
Him in the regeneration of your soul; He witnesses 
to your sins forgiven; you are adopted into His family; 
your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. God 
gives you grace to live without wilful and conscious sin- 
ning; with all your mistakes and infirmities you are 
His child. But note, you want more than anything else 
in this world to know His will concerning you. You have 
prayed daily "Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
Heaven." You have been earnest in your prayer, and 
now you have learned that His will is your sanctification. 
God has called you to holiness of heart and life ; you now 
have heard His call, and joyfully and willingly you 
are ready to obey His call to your heart; you want Him 

262 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

to come in His fulness into your soul to reveal Jesus in 
His sanctified power to you. 

Take courage! look up! He is right at the door of 
your heart; open; let Him in! Give Him the whole 
house from cellar to garret. He will come in to stay, 
to abide, to take the responsibility; He will gladly pay 
the rent and taxes; He will lift the mortgage and give 
you a clear deed. Do not look to yourself; give up your 
digging and searching and questioning; take your eyes 
off yourself, your unworthiness, and look to Jesus alone. 
He is going to come and sup with you. You have aban- 
doned all without any reserve; you are His; you belong 
to God, hands, feet, eyes, ears, tongue, will, memory, 
understanding, body, soul and spirit. You are sub- 
mitted to, do, dare, go, stay, be, lack, pray, sing, shout, 
be still, testify, preach, remain at home or go to a for- 
eign land, to live or die, poor or rich. In your inmost 
soul you can truthfully say, "I am all for Jesus." You 
have yielded yourself unto God. (Komans 6: 13.) 
You are crucified with Christ. (Galations 2 : 20.) The 
Old Man is under fire; don't spare him; no matter how 
he may complain or beg off or behave himself or promise, 
show him up! Confess him out! Let the holy fire of 
pentecost consume him. Destroy him! Christ is mani- 
fest in the flesh to destroy the works of the devil. You 
are presented unto God, a living sacrifice. 

263 



*ri 



"BREAD EROM HEAVEN." 

You have renounced all conformity to this world. 
(Eomans 12: 2.) You have counted the cost, paid the 
price; clinched the nail on the head, driven it home. 
You are done with it forever, past, present and future; 
what you know and what you don't know; houses, lands, 
property, money, family, home, children, worldly repu- 
tation and influence, all, all, all is presented unto Him. 
You have taken your hands off. The very interior 
abandonment of your heart life, what you cannot ex- 
press in words or write on paper, your faith, your trust, 
your views, your method of getting sanctified, your way 
of getting Him to come into your heart, of getting blest, 
you give up seeking any one else's experience; you want 
an experience of your own; no one else's will satisfy 
you; you will have a good time experiencing your own 
experience, sink or swim you are His for time and 
eternity. If He succeeds, you will succeed; if He fails, 
you are willing to fail with Him. You say, "what else 
am I to do?" Why, nothing, only rest; sink down into 
His will; claim the Blood has sanctified you; agree with 
God. "What," you say, "is that all?" Yes, it is as 
easy as that. Just as simple as that, in spite of tempta- 
tions to the contrary, in spite of your feelings, in spite 
of your past teachings and false philosophy, joy or no 
joy, peace or no peace, feeling or no feeling, witness or 
no witness. "Why," you say, "am I not to look for joy 

264 



DIVINB GUIDANCE. 

and peace and feeling, and a witness?" No, no; just 
look to Jesus now, as your sanctifier. Accept Him. 
He will bring the piano with Him, but don't court the 
piano. Let us keep to the text, when He is come. Just 
trust; believe, accept, rest. 

Sink down into a holy quietness; now you have 
entered the land. You just rest in Him, in His peace, 
His joy, when you are looking for an evidence, when 
you are looking for a sign. Remember a wicked and 
adulterous generation looketh for a sign. When you 
look for a sign, it is an evidence you have not perfect 
trust, and you are resting in self instead of Jesus. Give 
up all trying; just think of a wife asking her husband, 
"Do you love met" and think of the husband saying, 
"I am trying to love you, dear." How ridiculous that 
would be. Give up trying and sink into His love. You 
are now done trying, for that's human effort. You sink 
down into His will, which is your sanctification. 

You have commited your way unto the Lord. You 
are resting in Him. Commence to praise Him; delight 
yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desire 
of your heart. You have packed up bag and baggage, 
you are at Calvary's depot; you have secured a first-class 
ticket; you have booked for the holiness express; you 
have paid full fare, no half rates on this line. You have 
got on board by simple faith. You are now on the palace 

265 



car, sitting down, resting, no worry, no fret, you are not 
even fidgety. If thou wouldst believe thou wouldst see 
the glory of God. He sanctifies you now; you have 
given up your joy, your peace, your delight, your 
pleasure, your way, your influence, yourself for His joy, 
His peace, His delight, His pleasure, His way, His in- 
fluence, His life, His rest, His assurance, His quietness. 
The blood does sanctify you definitely and without hesi- 
tancy or dictation to God. You dare to take the witness 
stand not in your own strength, for you are an infinty 
of weakness, but in His strength you dare to confess, 
to testify that the blood does sanctify, does cleanse 
your heart, does bring you into perfect harmony to the 
divine will. You are not leaning to your understanding, 
but living or dying, you have sunk down to your own 
nothingness, and you are all in Him. Where you cannot 
see or feel or trace, you let go, and drop down helpless 
into His arms. I cannot explain to you what will 
happen, but if you will be still enough before God, if 
you will remain trustful and steady, and not waver, you 
will find it all out for yourself, and God will honor 
your faith by giving you more feeling than you can 
hold. The mystery of Godliness, which Paul declares 
was hidden for ages, will be revealed to you in the face 
of Jesus. Here is where the witness is found; when it 
comes, don't dictate to Him how you are to manifest 

266 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

His presence, His coming, His power, His glory. Let 
Him come in His way; don't keep back the blessing 
when the Blesser comes; be willing for Him to bless you 
any way He pleases, whether in quietness, calmness, 
shouting, laughing, weeping, or stillness — any way so 
Jesus is glorified in you. Don't trouble yourself about 
freedom like what any one else enjoys; your freedom 
is His. Every thought is brought into captivity to the 
obedience of Christ. This is the royal road of true 
Christ-like liberty. 



267 



Divine Guidance. 

Continued. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

divine guidance. (Continued.) 

Your freedom went in with your complete and unre- 
served abandonment; you are standing fast in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made you free. He whom the 
Son makes free is free indeed. You have now entered 
into the indeed freedom; you will now do, dare, pray, 
testify, for Him. You see it now, don't you? 

Don't be troubled if you cannot tell all that is in your 
heart. Eemember that no one else can; it's unspeakable 
and full of glory. Sometimes you may have to shout, 
or perhaps dance, or weep; at other times He will so 
overwhelm you with His blessed presence that you will 
be compelled to remain still in Holy, Hallowed, Sacred 
quietness and drink it in. Blessed Divine Abounding! 
You will not only be able to say, "I am crucified with 
Jesus," but you will be able to declare before three 
worlds that you live, yet not you, but that Christ liveth 
in you, and the life which you now live, you live by 
the faith of the Son of God who loved you and gave 
His life for you. (Galations 2: 20.) 

Your life is hid with Christ in God. Amen! Glory! 
He has come to abide, to stay; the promise of the Father 
is now fulfilled in you. He has not only come to stay, 

271 



"bread from heaven." 

but to guide you into all "The Truth." (R. V.) There 
may be a lot of truth you may never know anything 
about this side of heaven, such as Geology, Astronomy, 
Metaphyics, Mathematics, Physiology, Latin, Greek, 
Hebrew, etc., etc. This is not putting any premium on 
wilful ignorance, but you may be as ignorant as a Hot- 
tentot or as wise as a Solomon, and the Holy Spirit will 
lead you into all the truth which is essential to lead you 
through this world and land you safely in glory. It is well 
for you to know this, for many souls have been fogged on 
this matter of Divine Guidance, because they misunder- 
stand or misinterpret the word. It is not all truth, but 
all the truth, you have an unction from the Holy One, 
and you all know, it reads in our common version, "You 
know all things." This has led to a great deal of fool- 
ishness, and often rank fanaticism, discarding all human 
teachers who are filled with, and gifted by the Holy 
Ghost, and called of God to teach the saints. You do 
not want carnal pomp or eloquence, but you are willing 
to learn from the Jew as well as from the Greek, the 
ignorant as well as the scholar, when they are filled 
with the anointing that abideth. Paul was a sanctified 
apostle, still he was a debtor to the Jews as well as the 
Greek, while some have run off into wild-fire and fanati- 
cism and declare their infallibility, still this does not 
deny Divine Guidance, for the spirit is to guide us 

272 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

into all the truth. Keep on the main track, — perfect 
love. The way that Jesus marked out; keep fully 
abandoned to Him; keep your eye on Jesus, not on a 
vain imaginary spirit somewhere up in the roof of your 
head; put your eye on Christ. The truth is dwelling in 
your heart, He will guide you; He will not let you go 
astray; keep humble and teachable before Him; watch 
His providences; don't smash down the doors yourself, 
or you will rue it. Let Him open the doors. Men and 
demons may conspire to close up every door of useful- 
ness, but God will open doors which no man can shut. 
Be steady; be careful of your inward impressions; wrap 
everything well over the head; keep tranquil in your 
soul; see that your impressions are in harmony with 
divine providences, and with the TVord of God. Keep 
inside the Bible; exercise your best common sense; don't 
run before the Spirit; keep in the rear; let Him lead you; 
the sheep know the voice of the Shepherd, the sheep 
hear His voice, and He calleth His own sheep by name, 
and leadeth them out. Let Him go before you; you 
follow, keep your ear open to His gentle, loving voice. 
He will speak to your affections, and your heart will say, 
"yes, yes, where Jesus leads, I will follow." Cast your 
cares and burdens on Him, and daily you will develop 
in a life of patience; avoid all side tracks; keep in the 
college of His own heart. God saves fools, but He does 

273 



not expect them to remain such. You will find it neces- 
sary to graduate; love the secret closet of prayer; lay 
open the secrets of your heart daily; commune with Him 
honestly, and He will commune with you; He will not 
allow you to be side-tracked if you will keep humble, 
tranquil, quiet, and seek nothing after you are sanctified, 
but more love, more of the same kind of the second bless- 
ing fire, and when it rushes in on you, the Holy Spirit 
will teach you, if you will be steady and patient enough 
to listen to Him, that these mighty girdings and anoint- 
ings and holy refreshings and heavenly down-pourings of 
divine love-fire is not a distinct work of grace from the 
blessing of entire sanctification, but the same sanctifying, 
purifying, empowering, and second blessing fire coming 
in on your soul, to equip you for whatever work or suffer- 
ing He has called you to do or bear. You will look out 
for a relying too much on dreams, and you will avoid 
vain speculations and so-called revelations that are not in 
the word. Some who were once blessed men and women 
of God have been side-tracked on these lines and drifted 
off into nonsensical dreamlands and apparitions of balls 
of fire, which are so largely described in the lives of 
some of the Koman Catholic, canonized saints. Let us 
keep inside of the Word. After close reading for about 
fourteen years, I find no one any more clear in the teach- 
ing of the doctrine and experience of Scriptural holiness 

274 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

than Mr. Wesley. Truly he was a Christian, a gentle- 
man, a saint, a Paul, a scholar. Get his Christian per- 
fection; read it; study it, together with your Bible, and 
the Spirit will use them to the enlightening of your 
soul. The Holy Spirit will teach you not to fret, no 
matter what may befall you. 

You will take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, 
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's 
sake. This does not mean that you will lose your 
humanity, and that you will not feel grieved many times, 
for the more you advance in the sanctified life, the 
heavier crosses you shall meet, because the pain of ban- 
ishment increaseth in proportion to your love. The more 
keen will you feel insults and loneliness and ostracisms 
and slights; you will often be declared a mystery; few 
will understand you; doubtless Jesus was a mystery to 
His own mother, but while you will be grieved, from 
betrayals from false brethren, and slandered, you will 
not give way to fretting, because you know that your 
Father cares for you, and all is working together for good 
to you because you love God. All things, the word 
things or think has the same meaning with the Anglo 
Saxon, so that we might read it thus: "We know that all 
that we can think or conceive to exist in the present, or 
that possibly may exist in the future, will work together 
for our good if we love God. This is difficult to under- 

275 



stand, but we know such is the case because God's uner- 
ring and infallible Word declares it so. So that there is 
nothing that I can think of in the present, nothing that 
may possibly happen to me whether in the present or 
in the future, but will be for my good, if I really love 
God. 

All things; all that I can think of, all that I can 
possibly conceive though it may seem dark and obscure 
to me, though I may never be able to reason out the 
what and the why and the wherefore, though I may 
never be able to comprehend why they happen to me 
in this life, blessed be God! 

My text positively declares that if I truthfully love 

God, all things work together for my good as long as 

I love Him. So that we can challenge hell and Satan 

and all his excarnate as well as incarnate demoniacal 

agents; so that let sorrow crowd in upon us, poverty stare 

us in the face, loved ones forsake us, confidential friends 

betray us, foes detract, backbite and culminate and 

slander us, let our names be cast out as evil, so long as 

we know in our own hearts that we do love God, though 

we may be persecuted for righteousness' sake, — mind 

you, not for our sakes but for righteousness' sake, — 

though we may be reviled, and all manner of evil said 

against us falsely for Jesus' sake, I invite you to unite 

with me and the host of blood-washed souls, to rejoice 

276 



DIVINE GUIDANCE- 

with exceeding great joy, for great is our reward in 
heaven. Let us be done with our murmurings and dis- 
putings and questioning God's dealings with us, and let 
us send up a volley of hallelujahs and hosannas in praise 
and prayer and adoration to Him — Him who has said 
that all things work together for good to them that love 
God; to Him who is our light, our salvation; to Him 
who has perfected this love within our hearts, so that, 
though a host should encamp against us, and war should 
raise against us, our hearts will not fear, for in the day of 
trouble He shall hide us in His pavilion. In the secret 
of His tabernacle shall He hide us. He shall set us upon 
a rock so that our heads can be lifted above our enemies. 
He who has said, "Fear not, I am with thee," who has 
declared that He will be with us (all days), the dark 
days, the sorrowful days, the lonely days; days when we 
are cooped up in a tight place, when we do not know 
whether we ought to move to the right or left; when 
we are misunderstood, misrepresented, our motives mis- 
judged; when our nearest and dearest leave us to walk 
no more with us; when we are declared a mystery, even 
by our brethren in the ministry ; when all kinds of under- 
hand work is conspired against us; when hell itself will 
seem to hold a jubilee over the way we are treated. 
Precious, trembling heart, look up ! The God of Sinai 

and Pentecost is looking on. Be assured, if you are His 

277 



" BREAD FROM HEAVEN. 

sanctified child He is your Father, whatever He is doing 
or permitting to be done is for your own good, for my 
text declares all things; all that I can think, all that I can 
conceive, all that is possible to happen or may happen 
to me is working together for my good, if I love God. 
Ten thousands hallelujahs to our conquering King who 
has left us such a promise. Heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but not one jot or tittle of this text shall ever pass 
away. 

"Ah," some one says, "this is difficult to understand." 
Yes, dear soul, I admit it is. When father rejected me 
and drove me from my house; when mother fell upon 
me with her maternal embrace and gave me the last kiss 
as I was driven from my paternal roof; as I walked the 
lonely streets at midnight without a cent in my pocket, 
friendless, and alone, it was hard for me to understand 
it, but I have found out long since, though heart-break- 
ing it seemed to be, that he who leaveth father and 
mother, land and property, friends and relations, shall 
find hundreds of homes, and in the end everlasting life. 
If you take this blessed way which God has marked out 
for you, if you will deny yourselves and take up your 
cross and follow Jesus, though it make an incision in your 
shoulder, and though, so to speak, blood shall ooze from 
your feet as you follow Him in this thorny path, though 
you may be looked upon as the offscouring of this world 

278 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

and the scorn of hell, though you may, so to speak, be 
crowned with thorns and the sword of sorrow pierce your 
heart until you may be almost fainting on the way, I 
want to tell you, that He gives us the divine assurance 
that we shall march the golden streets with Him, and 
that we shall be numbered among the aristocracy in 
glory, for we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ; that if 
we are faithful a little while, the glory which was given 
to Jesus shall be given to us in our full redemption, and 
then we shall see that all things have worked together 
for good because we have loved God. 

I am sure Martin Luther, the great reformer, when 
he visited Leo X in 1512, was made Doctor of Theology, 
did not understand all that he had to suffer when he 
left the Augustinian convent in Wuttenburg, Germany, 
and took his departure from under Roman tyranny, and 
when the bull of excommunication was presented to 
him, consumed it in flames before a large public 
assembly; surely he did not understand when Leo X 
urged the new emperor, Charles V, to apprehend and 
punish him as a daring heretic. But Martin Luther 
lives to-day as a mighty reformer who turned Rome up- 
side down, and long since has learned that all suffering 
and privation and persecution, which he did not under- 
stand while he was here, worked together for his good 
and for the good of millions, because he loved God. And 

279 



George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, who 
was born in 1624 at Drayton, Leicestershire, England, 
his father being but a poor weaver, though he was im- 
prisoned in 1648 and imprisoned in 1650 under a false 
charge of blasphemy, confined in Derby prison for one 
whole year; God raised as the leader of a thousand souls 
who dared for conscience's sake take the prison rather 
than yield to the convictions of the conscience. Fox's 
name still lives, not only in the heart of thousands of 
his followers, but his name is immortalized in heaven, 
where he too has learned that all things work together 
for good to them that love God." 

And there is our own dear Wesley, the beloved apostle 
of holiness, the picture of whose countenance I love to 
look upon, born in 1703, and who, in about the year of 
1730, while at Oxford University, he and his brother 
with a few other students formed themselves into a 
society for the purpose of mutual edification and the 
spreading of Scriptural holiness, the grand deposition of 
the people called Methodists. He who was indefatigable 
in his labors, and whose doctrines have permeated all 
Protestant Christendom, he, too, has found out ere this, 
that all things have worked together for good to him 
and to millions of others because he loved God. Ah, 
beloved, whether we understand it or not, the language 
of my text is true, that there is nothing that can happen 

280 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 

to us; that He who takes care of the sparrow careth 
much for us, and will not permit one hair of our heads 
to fall to the ground without our Father's knowledge. 
Whatever befalls you, whatever may be the trials and 
tests and temptations, be confident that God is weaving 
them out in His loom to work together for good, if you 
love God. 

Look up! Don't be discouraged! Kemember that 
He is the wall of fire around about us; that He is our 
helmet, our shield, our defence, our breastplate, our 
sword. In His strength let us go forward. Let us know 
no retreat, but rush on in Jesus' name. 

Let us count it all joy when we fall into divers temp- 
tations. The toils of the road will seem nothing when 
we get to the end of life's brief journey, and if faithful 
we will be able to say, in the language of the Apostle 
Paul, "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my 
course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to 
me only, but to all them also that love His appearing." 
So we see that "all things" that work together for our 
good depend upon pure motives, our interior union and 
love of God at the time we pass through them, because 
we are among the number who are called according to 

His purpose. 

281 



"bread from heaven." 

He that trustetli in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, 
which shall not be moved; they that trust in the Lord 
shall never be confounded; the joy of the Lord is your 
strength; you have put on His beautiful garments and 
His strength. (Isaiah 52: 1.) You are strong in the 
Lord and the power of His might, and you now come 
to Zion with crowns of joy upon your head; you have 
obtained joy and gladness, and in His presence sorrow 
and sighing flee away. You have the oil of the joy of 
the gladness; the work of righteousness, which is peace, 
the effect of which is quietness and assurance; you dwell 
in a peaceful habitation and in sure dwelling places ; you 
have rest, peace. A Holy Sabbath has come into your 
soul; fret has gone. Glory! As you develop in this life 
of perfect love, you will become sensible to the voice 
of the Holy Spirit. You will learn to discern the differ- 
ence between the hard, scolding, rushing voice of Satan 
and the tender, sweet, gentle, dove-like voice of Jesus. 
Excarnate and incarnate demons will assail you, charg- 
ing you sometimes with the most cruel accusations. 
Sometimes when your body is depressed and you are 
suffering from physical or mental pain, when you are 
in heaviness through manifold temptations, when in 
times of test and trial you make a mistake, they will 
charge you sometimes and sneer at you and declare you 
a sham, a hypocrite, and backslidden. They will try 

282 



DIVINE GUIDANCE . 

to push you off into a pugilistic holiness that fights every 
body and every church, and because you have not that 
bulldog courage, they will declare you a compromiser, 
but don't let go your confidence. Hold on, or 
rather permit God to hold on to you. What you need 
is the courage of a Newfoundlander to jump in and 
save somebody. When you see your mistake confess 
under the guidance and wisdom of the blessed Spirit 
and go on your way rejoicing. He will enable you 
to discern truth from error in hundreds of tracts and 
so-called holiness papers, which hitch on a multitude 
of things under the name of holiness, in order to 
propagate their error. You will find that it .will be 
necessary for you to have a serpent's eye in a dove's 
head. You will learn to know that those who are 
wise for this world are wise for a moment, but fools 
for eternity. He will teach you the difference be- 
tween dressing as becometh men and women of God- 
liness and the straight jacket, legalistic, manner of dress- 
ing, which brings us into bondage of the nunnery black 
habit or the brown habit of Franciscans. You will avoid 
the two extremes; He will reveal to you the difference 
between the demonstrations of the blessed Holy Spirit, 
which are tender and melting, and the wild-fire enthus- 
iasm and inspiration of the devil. He will show you 
the difference between the grace of faith and the gift 

283 



"bread from HEAVEN." 

of faith, so that you will not run off or be side-tracked 
by the extreme views of faith-healing. I have seen 
hundreds of cases healed in Romanism, whom I am con- 
fident never new God, and who were out and out Christ- 
less drunkards, liars, cursers, licentious. There are hun- 
dreds of things we do not understand, and the safest way 
is to keep on the line of perfect love, and still you will 
not discountenance or undervalue the gift of divine 
healing. If you remain in His college, He will reveal 
to you the difference between Scriptural purity and the 
unscriptural doctrine or Roman celibacy, whether in the 
single or married life. If the devil cannot get you to 
commit some open sin, he will endeavor to get you to 
lower the Christ-standard or to switch you oft by exalt- 
ing the standard of holiness higher than Jesus ever 
raised it, and drift you off into the dark ages of a 
Roman Catholic celibacy. It will be necessary for you 
to keep your eye open. He will condemn you for re- 
maining in the church, and he will mail papers to you 
with a mixture of holiness to show you your supposed 
error, and to get you on the line of Comeoutism, the 
most bigoted of all sects, and if you don't come out 
from all the churches he will tease and annoy and 
endeaver to convince you that you are backslidden; he 
will charge you with wilful sin; when you know you 
are clean and unblamable before God in love. It will 

284 



DIVINK GUIDANCE. 

be necessary for you to trust in God every moment, for 
if you trust in yourself you will fail. He has come to 
abide, to stay, to dwell; He will reveal to you that mis- 
takes are not sins, and that sins are not mistakes. 

He will try to destroy your influence among souls by 
making use of gossipers, whisperers and slanderers; the 
blessed Holy Spirit will teach you to trust Him perfectly. 
Continue humble, calm, and tranquil before God. He 
will aid you to see the difference between possession and 
the mere profession of perfect love, which judges 
motives, is perpetually criticizing the navigation of 
others, which is like the Pharisaical prayer, which con- 
sists in the contempt of others, more than a living hatred 
of ourselves. This contempt is very common among some 
people and some places; nothing can be more incompat- 
ible with the true Scriptural experience of perfect love 
than this, which is the intervention of a weak head and 
a vain mind, with one or more spiritual ideas the result 
of which is a little rude practice of self denial, with a 
very abundant spirit of reforming everything and every 
place and every church and every domestic circle. It is 
very active, but onesided, and denotes a self sufficient 
mind. It is always changing with its prolific plans and 
superficial rapidity and loudness of brief and little pur- 
poses. These are some of the many signs of counterfeit 
professors who are not genuine possessors of perfect love. 

285 



Perfect love holds its own course like the earth turn- 
ing day and night on its own axis; it never tires, it is 
always restful; it sees God; believes God; relies on God, 
dwells in God, is childlike, humble, simple, teachable, 
always learning within its sublime possibilities, always 
loving and magnifying the power of the precious blood 
to cleanse. Perfect love of itself can never run upon a 
rock and be shipwrecked. The holy soul feels its way, 
sees the danger, and avoids it. It is easy to lose it, so 
it will be necessary for you to exercise your good com- 
mon sense and watch and pray and trust God so that you 
will not drift. 

False profession of holiness looks fine for a time, and 
to all appearances sails well, but when it has caught the 
wind full in its sails, it begins judging, condemning, 
pounding, and slandering others; it wears borrowed 
clothes, and calls itself by other person's names. As 
pastors and evangelists we suffer a great deal from this 
false holiness. With them every body is bad, a hypo- 
crite, no one is good but themselves. They exaggerate 
everything, doctrine, practice, and self-denial. They are 
ruled by a spirit of publicity and praise. They like to 
differ from all around them, while agreeing is tame and 
uninteresting, they present to the world and the church 
an image of God without His beauty. What can be 
more sad than this ? It is the very opposite of all which 

286 



DIVINE GUIDANCE. 



is seen in the truly abandoned soul that possesses Per- 
fect Love, and filled with the Ohrist-like spirit which is 
"Pure, warm, and changeless, 
A living fire." 



THE END. 



287 



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